the white tree poems

Lament for the death of the Zombie King

2007-07-22T17:07:00.000-04:00

I read about it in the newspaper, but they got it all wrong.
I know how it really went down: his flowered crown
had wilted badly in the moonlight. Such a shame,
really. He was such an impressive specimen despite
his pupil-less eyes, and lack of the usual social graces.

Personally, I will miss, most of all,
his penis, rotting away it's true
but so uplifting. Some say he was
circumcised as an adult, but I believe he let
nature take its fragile course.

Not that the sex was great, or anything.
He had difficulties focusing on the task
at hand, perhaps because his hand
wasn't his own to control, but still his charm
made up for his deficiencies in -- what's the word?

Performance. That's it. And he did try as well
as anyone similarly situated could. Besides
I was drawn by more than just his sheer animal
magnetism, if you must know. It was his voice
or the absence thereof. Such beauty in silence

I've never experienced before. Imagine, then
my surprise when finally he uttered what proved
to be his final word to me, only last week, but
already an eternity ago subjectively speaking.
Just the word: "Platypus" and then he stopped

moving for good. And I thought it was a joke,
you know, some sort of April Fools' gag, but his arms
fell to his side like hydraulic lifts when the fluid runs
out: slow and a bit squeaky as they descended.
I tried mouth to mouth, but his lips prevented

a good seal, and breathing was never
one of his strong suits. So, yes, I cried for a bit,
I'm not ashamed to admit it. Love is hard to find,
and a soul mate? You can answer that question
as well as I. Still, I can't help wondering

if somewhere, someday, we'll meet again
in a better world, one without the obligatory
stares and fearful looks, where two people can live
out their dream without regard to what animals
might come between them. Especially the slugs

which, I confess, I found hard to explain
to friends and family, both. Not that they
weren't cute, in a slimy sort of way, once you
got used to the smell. I used garlic and butter
to fry them up, when they got to be too much

to bear. Escargot without the shell, I told him,
and I swear, I almost saw a hint of a smile.
But that's me, trying to remember the good times
because I'm just an optimist, at heart. And what
else do you expect? Losing a lover

is always hard, hardest on the one left behind
with only her unfulfilled dreams to keep her warm
at night. Which by the way, is still when
I think of him the most; in the long hours before dawn
his friends all around, all their arms outstretched,

reaching to God, or whatever strange call they heard
as they carried me along, part of their festive swarm,
more happy, more alive, than I've ever been
before or since. And always, always, following
his lead, one step at a time, into the gloom.

A Tara Birch poem just for you

2007-03-19T12:00:00.000-04:00

A Tara Birch poem just for you, written while waiting for my son to steal away my computer so he can write an essay that he should have written yesterday (so it's a good thing he's a smart boy and gets all A's in school and causes us so little grief that sometimes we forget he is here and as scared as any of us)

last night I couldn't read the screen
with the biographical text of all the important
parts and counterparts

the major actors, the lesser characters
the smiling, charming effusive director
relentless in his praise for the city
of his dreams, the fabrication he made
that still stands

I couldn't read -- until I tilted the frames
of my eyeglasses, adjusted
the light flowing from there to here

inside my retinas, inside the excited rods and cones

how entertaining to grow old!

Last night, the dark returned to my head,
I lay in bed, dreaming awake
of the essay I'd write:

redemption was to be the theme, how it can't
be coerced, how it can't

be denied by God or Man or demons in drag
fluttering their hands, demanding allegiance

to hate. It was to be the best thing
I'd ever write, but now I won't.

It summoned me last night and now
it's recalcitrant,

refusing my call, refusing to speak
in the open light.

There are many pains I've acquainted myself with
over the course of this life:

self-inflicted burns, cuts, ingested poisons
and the sad sweep

of bleary looks at ceilings and floors and
bedspreads and skin

indifferent to touch. And of these? The worst
was the heart

filled as a balloon and drifting apart, pushing up
forcing itself out

uncontained as I lay on the couch, silent
and afraid of breath, of each beat,

of death as a welcome home, as surcease
for the void of what comes next

each second, each tick
of the clock or the watch on my wrist.

my nephew has found himself again
in the hospital, the cold blue tubes attached
to his arm

coming back from swimming in the murk of himself
which means of course

the brain he has refuses to work, refuses to match
the rhythms that others have
turing on, turing off in patterns of thought:

excite, repress, excite, repress --

those aren't the ways his brain accomplished
his task. instead it stopped
taking command of itself, stopped turning off

just pushed and pushed and pushed
the damn button until it stuck and his body
seized up, pale, ghost-rigid beneath

his poor parents' fear.

my brother says he spoke just once before giving up:
I know you're here.

why am I not here? a good question and one
I'd prefer to elide

because poetry has not been on my mind

unless forced out by a game

I listen to my daughter scream, or to her songs
parody songs the young always find

so amusing to sing:

Gawd bless my underwear!

and I read of a woman who was raped and then
sentenced to death by yemeni men

for adulterous relationships (but really for defiling
her husband)

and then she was saved because a small child
had wormed its way into her womb

and for two long years after birth she has lived with that thought, that her child saved her life

but for only a brief, unrelenting span

knowing his birth day, the remembrance of that
would also be the remembrance of the day they took him from her arms

to finish what had only been paused

I think of that woman, and her child, and the way
the earth turns

in our own backyards, grinding into the path
of the holocaust to come

unless we stop

for each of us is private, and lost to ourselves, threat,
for all of us a too large to think about threat

and you ask where has she gone?

she's been disappearing for years

Romeo & Juliet are co-dependent

2007-03-18T10:39:00.000-04:00

The darkest stars pierce hard a human heart,
but Juliet, so fair and white, is darker yet.
I'd burn desire out but I cannot.

She is my globe and I her moon. To part
would court catastrophe; grief and regret
would leave our shades behind while bodies rot.

Blood is our curse; her blood exciting mine.
Entwined, they brings us an apocalypse
that we are helpless to deflect. Malign

in purpose and intent, this passion grows
with no limit. And as the sun's eclipse
portends ill fate, so is this love that flows

between myself and Juliet, a sign.
Juliet is the doom I can't decline.

Hi, it's me and I'm dead

2007-01-12T20:12:00.000-05:00

I've killed myself, again, and let me just say (if I can) that this time cremation is out of the question. No more ashes for me, my friends, but no worms either. Just send me overboard to feed the fishies. I know, dying so far from any large body of water may prove ionconvenient to you (not to mention the environemtal laws you might break) and may seem a bit excessive, especially since I'm not one to complain or nag, at least not in my present state of decomposition. Nevertheless please respect this last request I'll ever make, unless I really do decide to return as another homo sapiens sapiens in what dreams may come (oh please, don't we all steal from the best every once in a while?). So, tata, my dear friends. The wake's on me. Love, [Name withheld by request of next of kin] Ps. The Jameson's that's left is first come, first served. Sorry about the Baileys: It is finished -- along with the rum, the cognac, and that one merlot from Washington State I'd been holding onto all these years. Nothing like diazapam and mixed drinks for a grand send-off, don't you agree? Best 30 minutes I ever spent! Too bad the rest of you missed the party. Better luck next time we're well met.

The ignorance of bliss

2007-01-12T11:07:00.000-05:00

The sounds you make remain within my head, as lights that shine amid persistent pain. Under their spell, I molt, I change, I shed Constraints which once were chains, but now are threads Unraveling, unwilling to constrain The sounds you make remaining in my head. Their music, not your words, which fail to wed Their meaning to the joy I ascertain. Under their spell, I molt, I change, I shed The world and all its fatal charms. Instead, I listen now to wind and clouds and rain; The sounds they make remain within my head Like whispers of a future that lies just ahead; A place, a time, a vision I would gain. Under their spell, I molt, I change, I shed. And yet, this mystery to which I’m led By you is frightening. I can’t explain The sounds you make remaining in my head. It is rebirth, returning from the dead As Lazarus came back to life, again. The sounds you make remain within my head. Under their spell, I molt, I change, I shed.

years and years of american fears

2006-12-29T11:34:00.000-05:00

this food lays in my belly the wine suspended above bubbles of a gaseous diaspora while the colored boys run to see their necks stretched again in the pinafore skirts and lollipops of white girls under the age of that age this my century o lazurus who died and rose and died again for our unknown sins that evil lice spread while the indians sang amazing grace that old hymn on the road to their graves as the blues shot the greys and everyone played cards in saloons where the judge called the tunes that we danced and we danced in the night of no moon women and men stepping out and leaving our boot prints in the dust of places that don't exist because we marched our millions of soles in lockstep for this is our country each life and each death each slave and each brute for unto each is it written that nothing is given without the salute for the guns knives bombs and parades topped off by a sailor's big kiss just to sell magazines and these faces and tears treaties and pleas anger and anguish in the names we've unnamed and the peoples denied sent to visions of hell where the earth opens up and the devil says put some bling on her butt a cross on her neck and nylons on her thighs so say hello to the burqa say hello to islam say hello to your karma say hello to alarm for this is the world that your fathers have made and your mothers approved a world of nothing but pictures to entertain and amaze a world formed for the insane so my stomach's upset with food no one but no one knows I don't need a pain a sting a rebuke a crime and a craze where what I eat sends a message of waste and disease and of lies that I know we'll repeat to the end of my days

An elegy for the remainder

2006-12-23T15:09:00.000-05:00

I I am consumed by ice, it's crunch, the bitter taste of chlorine in my mouth, the cold, hard spikes which sting my tongue and my teeth. It is Christmas, someone said, the season for gifts, but I have nothing left; not even words. You You are pensive, afraid, giddy, weak, the strongest woman with the fullest watery eyes, the weepiest voice. When we meet, you laugh at the birds, still circling above in the unlikely heat. What a relief, to see you smile, as if the world is all right. He He stretches his fingers, cracks his neck, keeps his own counsel from pouring forth into our grief. Anger waits behind his face, as impassive as stone, as reluctant as mice when the cat is awake. He eats, he sleeps, he feels the unknown creep. She She bothers everyone. She bothers herself, the words scratched out as well worn chalk, too well known, too well heard. Her mouth opens and the alarm always sounds. In the quietest time she bangs out her songs, the notes fresh, the melodies long. The Deceased Time was his to command, so we think, as the clock inside ticked down, as the matters concerning him were made right over the last week, the last day, the last hour. The last word was brief, just like the Christ he never cared to meet. The Circle of Life The children know it exists in their heads, not their hearts. A phrase for the dying, a hope for denying the immoveable end of flesh and bone, of eyes that will dim. We repeat the words no one believes. A litany which cannot be broken.

Punish me

2006-12-04T17:04:00.000-05:00

Hit me in the mouth with your back hand and make me spit blood. Let me feel your knuckles crease my face right above my left cheekbone. Yes I've been bad, so bad, again, love, bad enough to burn. Don't make your excuses. Don't run to your room, letting me escape to roam the streets with my drunken gait bumming cigs, and crawling home at noon, my hair a mess, my dress ripped and torn. Don't put it off, again. I'll never learn until you insist a swollen lip, a purpled eye, a broken arm is what I deserve. What I need from a man so listless in bed, so absent each night, is a little pain, a battering ram to force me back to your arms. You ain't that guy you say to me, but I want to hear an angrier voice, one crossed with acid etched in chrome, taking away my buzz of bourbon laced with coke, reminding me that I belong to a brutal guy, the nastiest boy in town. A man who knows how hell's unleashed with a lash across my back so bare, hungry for its stripes. But then, each time you brush aside my pleas, retreating to your car or den, leaving me with nothing but this rancid life and the thought that you don't give a damn.

The Souls of Little Males

2006-11-03T10:28:00.000-05:00

They seem innocent enough when you pass them on the street, or meet them at your home, trimmed in trick or treat displays of childish gore.

The shortest has a painted face, a black and white striped Ghoul. The tallest wears a jester's hat, and dances as the Fool. They both say they want "More."

More of your over sweetened, chocolate coated candy bars wrapped in stylised trademarks of Hersheys, and of Mars; the brands that kids adore.

What hides behind their sham disguise? A life of crime when they grow old? Law breakers from a future time now lingering at your door?

One day, might not this Fool pull out a pistol or a knife, and steal a wallet, snatch a purse, or take someone's life, just to make a score?

Or might the Ghoul at twenty-eight beat up and rape his date because he get his rocks off when he's most irate, screaming "You Fucking Whore!"?

You never know which boy child will grow up to be bad, or hurt the ones he claims to love when he's crazy mad; the guys who go "hard core."

Oh sure, there are the good kids who learn to be good men and become good fathers, every now and then. But they still go to war.

The shortest path to love and happiness

2006-09-22T11:37:00.000-04:00

is never apparent, never visible in the light of the sun at dusk. We can try to chart a course, you and I, but which one of us will succeed is a matter best left to others my love, not spoken of at dawn when the slanted rays of orange cross hatch your back, swinging back and forth, like shallow waves in a pond a small rock begins. Too many obstacles must be surveyed, to many discoveries of things unknown must be displayed before either of us can take this kiss, and the next slight slip of breath we share face to face, as serendipitous. You wish to draw a line right through my breasts into my heart, and name that space for yourself, but do not take that chance, don't jinx the result. Birds mate for life, I've heard it said, but that's not miraculous. Two fools shackled to their living room chairs can say as much. We want something else, do we not? So do not watch too close the direction I take, for the road to my heart is a tangled thread, an uneven weave of old and new cloth, some silk, some rough as coarse burlap. More dimensions exist in the universe than any map can present. Believe me not? Then look at yourself, your empty arms at night when we pull apart. That moment's thoughts are a burden which can never be fixed, never made to vanish. I discern their growth, and the mysterious past through which they elude your grasp. Give it up. If someday we lose ourselves enough, perhaps we'll no longer need a map. Time will show to us that the path we wanted was the one we took.

Imagine yourself as the last man on earth

2006-09-15T09:34:00.000-04:00

No one left behind, no cure for cancer, plague or stupidity. You finger the air, but there is no breeze. Out upon a desert white as snow you see a mirage. A few dancers grappling arms and tangled legs and a floor of oak, polished and pale. The dance is old, the dance leaves you alone after a while. This too shall pass, the saying goes. This too, and this too, et al. It is the second day of ... Water. Rain. The unapproachable clouds high overhead, with a few scattered beams of light coming down. Nothing. No response from the ground as day becomes dark, as the darkness consumes all color, all sight. Everything you might hope, or dream, or believe within the limit of faith, falls down. In your inner sanctum, the secret space where memory plays, you wear a disguise and drift through a crowd from lesser days, among lesser souls. Their speech fills a room, then a hall, then bursts forth as a wail. Imagine. Me without you. You without a word. Dialogue which fails. If only you could film the silence that surrounds each of us, now gone, and the clouds, and the air, and the invisible blue spirit that is ... On the third day you rise. Partly to smell what can be smelled, partly to relieve your body of its fouls. Of this gift, you pray let it end today. Your sounds echo in the haze, slipping away like waves upon the beach. No mercy. No dream. No peace. The angels breathe in the stillness of your voice.

You think you know

2006-08-26T10:52:00.001-04:00

In our small garden lies a fallen tree, struck down before its branches grew. No one knows what caused the dread disease that stifled a life in its infancy. A birch, dead leaves weeping from the dew in our small garden lies. A fallen tree with no marble monument to appease the slender spirit I pretend I knew. No one knows what caused the dread disease. Through my kitchen window, I sometimes see at dusk, its form; a reminder of you. In our small garden lies a fallen tree as dead as the love that scorned my pleas, and left me here to search for someone new. No one knows what caused the dread disease -- or should I say that "no one" is me, still waiting to discover what was true. In my small garden lies a fallen tree. Know one knows what caused its dread disease.

Some advice on what to keep handy

2006-05-06T14:06:00.000-04:00

Trace down the sky from finger to finger past Orion, past Cassiopeia, each of the Dippers (or if you prefer, Ursas) until the Moon rests firmly between your thumb and forefinger. Whether sliver or crescent, gibbous or fuller, just pluck it and place it in a box full of memories and keep it until necessary, until the time and the place when your eyes have gone cloudy. Then in your mind's eye on your last, little journey let its light keep you company.

Indictment

2006-04-07T10:24:00.000-04:00

Whereas, I'm the damsel in distress and you're the knight who drinks too much, slaps our kids on the ass or kicks the dog for the least misdeed: misplacing your slippers, chewing the fabic of your Lazy Boy couch, spilling chocolate milk in a pool under the high chair or interrupting the football games that you watch. Whereas, The paperboy is now afraid to deliver here anymore after you opened the door last Sunday night when he came to collect, half dressed with no shirt, wearing only boxers and socks, holding tightly clenched your favorite 12 gauge Mossberg, eyes glazed and your face in a snarl because I cooked your steak just a little too far past raw. Whereas, You used to tickle my ears when we fucked in the afternoon, whispering how much you loved the skin that you touched, the breasts that you cupped, the smell of my hair and the hard arch my back made when I replied to each thrust that you made from behind. Whereas, Once upon a time I bathed in your smile, thinking to myself how innocent it seemed, how like a little boy you were, constantly seeking to please, performing little tricks of the manly trade, showing off your strength, or pulling roses from behind your back and pushing them in my face, as if love was a game and I was the prize. Whereas, We all make mistakes, and this one is all mine: that I never looked too close, never examined all the evidence you presented to me, because I was blind to the signs that my fairy tale dream of you had gone awry; little things like the edge in your voice, the hard grip on my arm, the vacant, jealous clamped jaw threats you made whenever another boy passed by and looked my way. Whereas, I'm guilty of crimes against the kids and myself, for each black eye, each dislocated small limb, each bruise and each scar on my face and on theirs, and the lies that I told to cover for you, to hide from the world my horrendous mistake: letting you take over my life in exchange for a false promise of bliss that I told myself must be true. Whereas, In light of the fact that I, being of sound mind and body, have freely confessed these crimes, the worst of these having made you my metaphor, I fully accept my due punishment for same, i.e., the loss of this life, which it's true, I don't mind losing, and the loss of my children, a far crueler penalty, but one I deserve for having led them into such a bad tale. Therefore, Drink from the cup of life, my dear, for by the time you find this we will be gone, and you will remain here on earth where you belong, for hell is not found in the afterlife, darling, it's whatever is left to you before departure is near.

Ode to the angels as they fly

2006-03-02T14:53:00.000-05:00

You wander through the evening sky, to all the stars a passerby, and all the children point, say "Why does God connect his stars with streaks of white? I say they're only angels fast in flight and that an angel's wings are made of light. In short, I lie. I will not try to make them cry explaining the fall of meteorites. To tell the truth sometimes is just not right. Better myths about angels in the night than specks of dust that spark and die, pulled from orbits that went awry. There's no magic in that reply.

A poem in the form of an unfair hatchet job after reading the work of Kathleen Wakefield

2006-02-14T10:35:00.000-05:00

Yes, it was just one poem, I read, something about grace, birds, bees, the beauty of nature, and the melancholy life of human beings, but it was so insufferably boring and predictable I wanted to throw up. Instead, I imagined myself arguing with her (okay, a monologue) in which I brought out all of my perverse sexual behavior and put it on display, as if to say, Fuck you Kathleen Wakefield! What do you know about grace? I imagined telling her of the tremendous girth a penis acquires at all the wrong times -- when your choking and gagging, or when your ass is impaled, and some idiot's thrusting, not at all delicately, in the wrong place. But it would be wrong to make such complaints about her life after reading one single poem, and so I demurred, being fair-minded and all that, so-called, jazz we tell ourselves corresponds to the word, decency. But it wasn't her poem that changed my mind -- no, not her verse, so clean and precisely verbose, eloquent to excess, no line break untweaked. It was the crass grab for my attention made by TV announcers broadcasting the past in prime time for their advertisers. Just four silly skaters, two pairs, dancing on ice while the world burned beneath them. One woman, one man, competitive equals in suffering, trying to overcome flaws that threatened each of their universes. The man, for his guilt at having dropped his partner's pale face on the ice two years ago, almost quitting the sport but gutting it out, all for her to have a chance at the gold . . . And the woman, who fell yesterday afternoon, after being spun too far around by the two strong arms of her partner, crashing to her knees in distress at having failed. Nonetheless, still getting up despite the pain she so clearly felt in her knees, in her mind. One strong, one frail in appearance, both lost to themselves, to their persistence in conquering fears, conquering fate, finishing their programs, falling down to the ice at the end, in humility, in tears, in sheer goddamned relief. Isn't that grace?

Unwritten

2005-12-12T16:49:00.000-05:00

I hear her voice, and she is the sum of her voice. In all things she speaks, she is the sum of her voice. In dense woods, the quiet makes soundless her mouth. The dew on the leaves we see becomes her voice. The taste of her kiss is sweet syrup on my tongue, And the wisdom of two hearts escapes from her voice. Birds warble, sitting atop the tree's frosted limbs. In their songs, she finds the purest hum of her voice. Outside, the wind stills, and waves, on the waters, calm. The day goes cold, as all the world benumbs her voice. The tear filled eyes of young boys are drawn to her face. Their beautiful, enchanted eyes make dumb her voice. With rasping notes, sliding tones and soft words of love, Her melody makes all who hear succumb to her voice.

Thanksgiving morning

2005-11-26T19:51:00.000-05:00

Snow's on the ground and the plows rumble by in the dead of the night. Under blankets, we're warm. We cover our eyes against the coming of light and the start of this day, this day of our feast, and the pretense of joy amid their unabashed bliss, the daughters who'll sing and play with the boy as if he was theirs, a jewel to be won, and a jewell to be worn. Soon their voices will drum against my solitude, and then I'll be torn from this bed and this home. Why measure despair with family and friends? Why measure at all? Because reader dearest, all means have their ends.

2005-10-22T11:27:00.000-04:00

EDEN RECALLED Preamble This is a story, where no one can tell you their memories are pure. A tale without limbs. A tale of words that are missing. Where voices were once heard. I. Someone said beasts roamed the land without anger. And trees grew without being cut down, without growth being owned. Their fruit brought forgetfulness; their fruit brought no pangs. And wind. I recall wind at its gentlest. Always a breeze. Bird calls at sunrise. Birds with colorful feathers. The colors were different. Black was absent; had been banished from our presence. Blue, green, yellow, red? Scattered patterns return to mind. And water filled every vista: rain, snow, ocean, river. We drank from fingers held over our mouths. II. Leaping, arms across bodies racing, screaming to the world. In pursuit of each other, we fought for each summit. Your hills went unnoticed; my hills were mysterious. The hills that we traced were like carpets, and smooth. When we found them, we left all caves unexplored. We left them without wanting their pearls. III. I can't recall sunsets. Only a brilliance that dimmed. At the close of each day we washed ourselves, dried ourselves. Your hands were my hands, your feet were my feet. Touch was convergence. Touch was ecstatic. My tongue swept your hair back; your tongue wiped my lips apart. Smiles? Were there smiles? And darkness was velvet, purple, stained with the stars. There was awe (now I'm sure). IV. On the morning I left it, I left you with my scar. You may still be there, asleep to its charms. But the names that we gave there have eroded to dirt. They've disappeared as I've aged. But long ago someone said a child was foretold. And all I remember is that she's here now. All I remember: my child; maybe yours. Long ago . . . is she yours?

2005-10-12T16:17:00.000-04:00

Answer to a friend about what I write it's not every six or 2, 3, 4, 5 months apart they appear --little fireflies, little sparks -- they come when they can; my half thought out thoughts they bubble up, or float to the top after death fills them up but they have to fight that same long fight we all must make to find a place of warmth, of sun, of a smidgen of light there often isn't a thing I can say to give them comfort or aid to succor their hopes or let them give me mine let's look at the reality they often hide: sick children, sick hearts, innumerable pains, loss of dreams, fear of the kind- ness of strangers and the ill thoughts of friends let me give you a picture: walking in the rain, or the threat of the rain geese exploding in hundreds a hundred feet overhead crying their cry of dismay the sheer beauty and power of their flight all because they were afraid I'll leave you with that -- something close to sublime

untitled response poem

2005-07-02T10:25:00.000-04:00

tonight, watch the sky at dusk in the haze of sunset the infinitesimal horizon line shading darker than blue inside your own head, hear the click of your teeth, grinding enamel away into fine dust calcium based, crushed up with the ice that you shouldn't chew pardon my french pardon my english pardon nihongo, sumimasen but this is all I know -- small bits, chunks really, just discrete elements of time on a stopwatch on/off, on/off and how none of them together make sense without necessary principles that are inevitably false, that inevitably fail but -- oh the house that appears for a while alone on the shore virus alert! virus alert! your computer has been transformed and it pounds, cracks, shakes at your head fills the world with an ache dismal and obscure, sharp and perverse from moment to moment it's a time for meditation about small, independent parasites doing a job without conscious awareness far better than I could I drift on the paths of their molecular lives as they search for their purpose for the keys to their death glorious no doubt, painless perhaps not meteorologists should consult my knees, my back which are far more accurate than their fine instruments and models with numbers no mind could endure what is thought, after all, but foam on the tide, washed up and useless except as a sign, an omen, a token of things unseen, living brief lives fighting their wars, building their homes and their places of work vanishing without any mourners or tombs or monuments in the desert town, on a deserted street the ghosts meet curiously tense, curiously brief with their ghost dust and ghost wind and ghost muck that sticks to the treads of their tanks or the wheels of their trucks while inside those structures, that is where life breeds and escapes, kills, dies, re-makes and refashions itself now red, now pink, now brown, green, slithering white or clear, thin, diffuse in the absence of light

2005-01-04T15:56:00.000-05:00

Fragment of a letter, date uncertain The prince aimed his bow high, and then exhaled letting the arrow fly straight at the moon. Did he fail? Did he succeed? No one can say. But we know this: the moon is dead. The colors we see are not the response of creative gaiety, but are deceits, tricks played by sunlight and atmospheric conditions, angles of geometry and refraction. What did the prince believe? The tale, in whatever form it takes, refuses to tell us. It always ends with his white arrow disappearing into the darkness. Nine suns he slew, but as to the heart of his woman racing away, escaping into eternity, the legends are mute. But Yi is long dead, and the moon is still beautiful, neh? What other answer do you need, my love?

2005-01-01T13:23:00.000-05:00

Mochi New Year's Eve requires steamed rice and a willing granddaughter. You must take it out warm, still steaming, but not so hot it might burn hands or fingers. The girl listens, a boy's shirt covering her belly swelling from chocolates and peppermints eaten that morning, while her parents slept in, unaware of her habit to huddle alone on the couch, not even a blanket against solitude. All her questions get answered because grandmother loves to teach, loves to talk almost as much as the younger self she sees by her side, eyes focused as if they were searchlights, and she, a lost boat between the swells of the ocean. She pounds the rice, then gives granddaughter her turn without any prompting, the two of them one mind, one body, one space for an afternoon. Only time, she says, only time and patience. They watch the rice turn glutinous, sticky beneath their hands, each grain lost, absorbed by its brethren. This is our tradition, she says, explaining again, repeating the lesson. This is our celebration. Someday, teach your children.

2005-01-01T13:20:00.000-05:00

We are far away She leaves the house, yellow coat unzipped. He sees a mosquito, misplaced from the snow melting today. Syllables, soft syllables, not words. The mosquito flew awkwardly, off to his right. She lights a cigarette from the pack she hides in her car. A sweet, brown red burn at the end of her nose. Somnolence, when will it come? She asks him this. She laughs too. How lovely her teeth must be. The smoke spews from her nose, blows from her lips. He can feel the oddity of winter in the breeze. In the misted rain that floats down upon his coat. Grey fleece, black street, tall house. Tonight, chimes. Tubular bells. Music to be improvised in the touch of hands. The scent of hair, unwashed, closely held. Forever exists nowhere in time. That's what he says, and she repeats. Do you know how it is without anyone? Forever, my love. Forever. My love. Chimes. Bells. Wind. The cigarette is tossed to the ground.

2004-12-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

Fortuna Standing at the top of the hill, the grass matted down, a swirl of stars overhead. A city roams the earth, under roiled clouds, its lights sparkling too bright for any star's glance. Blackness looms on the edges, for these are mountains at midnight, and the hill rests in the valley, and the girl rests her body, chest heaving, heart racing, muscles weary. Dogs bark. She hears footsteps on a dirt path. She runs, runs fast as a tired body can in the murk of a moonless night. Are they chasing? Are they gaining? Her legs tell her story. The wind calls her name very softly, very dryly. Her skin prickles, feels the cold in those words. There is nobody, and no city, and there is no nightmare behind where her feet touch. Dogs bark, but because they are lonely. Because they are too far away. She forgets where she is, why her lungs rasp. Her mouth cottons, her lips crack. Her pupils switch back and forth, back and forth large as gilded plates. Drowned by her heart beats, crickets still chirp in the roar of a river bulging red in her throat. Breathe in, out, in, out. She breathes through nose and mouth both. From the snow in her eyes, the low hum, she knows what the tower knows when it collapses down on itself. Dust rises. She falls and the dirt reaches up, the grass calls out. At the edges, naked, she appears like a ghost or a frost on the grass. Kiss, kiss. Leave her that. Turn out your lamp. Sleep in the wake that your city makes. The siren you hear is not meant for your ears.

2004-12-27T13:42:00.000-05:00

Herring glow after death for a few days, when their green, pure surfaces turn blue, and their gills red, suffused with blood at the moment of death, searching for oxygen among a curse of gaseous molecules forever beyond their use. No one knows the reason for illumination. Alive, in their shoals, they're observed in the sun as a white, triangular shape in motion under the waves of the ocean. How many eggs are laid? How many are eaten at every stage of the life cycle? How few avoid the waste we leave, mutating the organs of those who survive. God loves each sparrow, but a fish? They have no hands to pray, no wings to soar, no throats to sing epiphanies. Life and death are their only gifts, and, if left alone on the killing ground, uneaten, a slender light reminding us who has dominion.

2004-12-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

In the nave

smoke swings from the chain

a priest chants his name

and children sing

Hallelujah! Hosanna to the highest! under windows, beautifically stained.

Each head bows hesitant, penitent, full of doubt.

Gloria, in excelsis deo!

fills the chapel with voices driven

by what's revealed

as pure emotion from the pews, the wood still glowing

from polish applied the previous evening. From above

(though that is a convenient dictum)

a spirit comes to join all the kneeling,

restless children, silent men

and silent women, their pious, unseeing eyes pointed away from the ceiling.

In the hush before repentance is accepted,

in the youngest faces

a dove makes its apearance

wings full spread, offering

a Christmas Eve benediction. Later, mourning will fill them with passion when they return to lives lived in other locations, on other occasions.

But for now, peace, that most joyous illusion,

deserves to keep them

omniscient

for one winter's segment,

for one simple season before it must leave them.

2004-11-27T01:54:00.000-05:00

the differences between us you will always have the river wide in the way a boy thinks is wide quiet brown silted water as distant as ancestral piazzas and i will have mountains not too tall scalable but not by me holding back clouds and lightning both your river will take you back to fond pleasant thoughts of youth or ugly thoughts perhaps or fear of what a boy never lost and my mountains? they were wilder than that more potent in their expressions still and erect and stagnant with grace your river shames you for what you were and what you cannot forget but there was no shame in it when it passed through pastures and lowlands green hills and woodlands, wild flowers and wheat and there was no shame in the mountains at my feet late at nights tar shine and moon light on my face forearms, hands, lips, waist, skin no shame in that

2003-09-27T12:22:00.000-04:00

how to live with a sad person trigger thoughts of pleasure as you rub her skin with firming lotion. mix and knead each wrinkled surface carefully -- take extra time when you come to her face -- and gently slip your hands across knuckles, unwinding her fists. say: you deserve this

2003-09-18T16:31:00.000-04:00

* Passing a night in September 1 His head aches. Little moths fritter in flight beneath the light, too small to matter much, & the distance is great from one side of the bedroom to where she sits, reading her book, the calm of a storm. He sneaks a glance her direction, in rhythm with the clock on the bedstand. The slow pulse of pain in blocked sinuses, a counterpoint to his thoughts. 2 The moths absented themselves (so he hopes) when he dimmed the lights. A fly crawls on screen, the football game's on, but he's stopped listening. For her, sleep came an hour ago. She softly snores. Someone he doesn't care for is winning. 3 The book is bent open along its spine. Page 223, the chapter on the line as it relates to the sentence. How syntax creates tension, moving from one clause to the next, for one's readers. The milk by his bed is forgotten, & warms until the taste is intensified beyond drinking. He closes the book without enclosing her bookmark. 4 When she awakes, her eyes see a flutter of blue lights, and then some that are brighter, yellows and reds flashing. He's rolled over to his side, pulled all the covers away leaving the cool of the room's air to bring her back from her dreams. She stumbles in rising, half-grey, half a mixture of rainbows, & lifting her hand, finds the remote's power button. A click heard by them both. 5 On the opposite wall, up by the ceiling, moths are waiting in dark shade, ever patient. They have faith that the light will return in the morning. No one else rests easily. The night's temperatures are too varied, colors too few, tastes too sour in their mouths. No children smell sweet to lessen their feelings, smother bitters with fruit.

2003-09-18T16:25:00.000-04:00

* Story of 1 A man lives a cave of trees, evergreens bunched tightly together where no light enters, and old air stales within dead spaces between branches. Everything is brown during the day, or grey when the sun goes down, as stars emerge. That's when he hides from pubescent drinkers, first time lovers. The cave is large, has many naves in which to escape their many eyes and flashlights, their drunken voices and crumpled cans. 2 She is the great romance of his life, the great romantic figure he imagined each year that passed until they met. She leaves him for an older man, and neither understands her reasons. She makes some up to try to please him: he is a weakling, he drinks too much and shouts when drunk. This older man gives her gold chains to wear around her waist and wrists and anklebones. She jingles when they fuck, her ecstasy intense when her older lover gets rough, slaps her face, calls her a cunt, forgets to lubricate, pulls her hair back at the moment when he shakes his sperm out. She learns too late this was how her father loved her in what she once thought were just ugly dreams. 3 He sleeps in stolen army surplus tents, though no rain hits the ground, no wind creeps in. His home is grand, has many rooms, a hard-packed floor of earth and needles with their edges worn. He drinks leftover beers, smokes cigarette butts, salutes teenage boys for their vices. Picks up their empty cans for cash. No one at the soup kitchen knows about his cave. My fortress of solitude, he thinks, and laughs. 4 Seasons change. She finds herself married with two kids, a nice home, a husband who cares as if she were a precious thing -- not gold, not jewel -- but valuable, nonetheless. Her father is dead so long ago now she can pity him, no longer feels the blue flame of her anger. Was that love? Has she known love? Her children -- yes, of course -- but who else? I lust for safety now, she thinks and doesn't tell herself about her other lusts. Those are for therapists -- someday, perhaps. 5 He doesn’t hear a thing until the black after sunset begins to fall. No voices, no heedless scrape of shoes, no lighters flicking, no inhalation, nothing at all except the breathing of someone else almost as furtive. He hides his bottle, turns slowly without sound, each motion planned. He knows about careful. Sees the other, a younger man, a boy he doesn’t know, removing shirt, then pants, then underclothes, The boy doesn’t see him, doesn’t look around. Sighs to himself, moves his hand up and down, back and forth, fast – fast. He stares at this. The light not good but enough to know the form, the line of the boy’s back, the curve of skin so like and unlike what he once loved. He watches it all. He watches too much. 6 She has settled down, the kids in bed the tv off, a book in her hand. Looks up, disturbed. A small pattern of lines coalesce on her forehead. Deep lines and long. The book of poems, Last Poems by Auden, are put down. Something, she knows, something is wrong. The sky rotates in a way she’s not seen, and the air, itself, seems to hiss at her face. Almost, she remembers him. Almost, but then shakes her head, and under the trees, he knows she’s gone.

2003-09-18T15:58:00.000-04:00

* Meditation on Zoloft, Concerta, Caterwaul & Congruent Caterwaul. I had to look it up just like congruent. That's the beauty of net dictionaries. They coincide with all my lapses in memory. Discordant sound and correspond or coincide. So I don't forget the point, those were the meanings I found. So, to keep it straight, my daughter's screeching coincides with the coming of evening. That's why she's medicated. Or is it? Forgive me. I'm losing focus. No, her medication is given to help her focus at school, to broaden attention spans, to keep the sentence going, (to use an example, i.e., to speak figuratively) though to change the subject back to the literal, we have nothing for her screeching. Nor anything for mine. Though I no longer caterwaul, our moods are congruent . She is anxious, and I am fearful. She is manic, and I excitable. She is not happy (so she tells me) but I won't go there. It's too early, but don't worry. We've both swallowed our pills, changed the scenery. She's focused and I have this -- serenity -- for the next 12 hours, or so they tell me.

2003-07-15T11:28:00.000-04:00

The difference between motive and intent 1. The bullet can be said to have a life, no matter how brief, because it has action and purpose, and is carbon based. This action is predetermined, as is the purpose but that fault's not the bullet's grief. What joy it must experience, screaming through the air at a speed supersonic, its birth in a chemical burst. Knowing its object's to pierce, the bullet's not subject to feelings of doubt about the meaning of life. 2. A woman has a life of indeterminancy. Who will she marry? Who will provide for her children? What man can accomplish those tasks, and still inspire -- what exactly? Love, lust, contentment? A backyard pool, new hardwood floors, a kitchen to die for? And who will befriend her? Everyone's so much older, such middle aged frumps, gossipy slick with hateful looks at her youth, the true blonde of her hair, her naivete so earnestly exaggerated, hoping for some sort of acceptance, even as the secret butt of their jokes. Even that unpleasantness, she willingly once sought. 3. The knife remains inert, merely a tool, someone's device. It is a slave to another's will, an instrument. It's life has no independence, however brief, however futile. Perhaps that is for the best for knives are dangerous, even when useful, even at rest. They have this potential for any evil thought to make itself manifest in actions unspeakable, and cruelly beautiful. 4. The bullet dies when it hits the intended object, movement denied further advancement. Once sleek, it now is only a lump or worse, fragments. Death's instantaneous and the bullet may never know it has, or has not, accomplished its purpose. That is its fate, a rush of wind, a whiff of cordite and then oblivion upon achieving success or failing in its reach. Not knowing, it is free from despair. There is a purity to this, a life lived in pursuit of great things, outside morality, the decisive moment long past. 4. Outside on the porch in the evening light, behind her fence she smoked cigarettes. Her hands shook. Why did she start? Answers are incomplete. Stress, the loss of opportunities at work, money ill-spent, the tears of her children as she left them each morning to the indifference of strangers repeating their mantras: It ends as soon as you drive off. Trust us about that. She felt that loss, and smoke, at least for an instant she could keep, hold close, assure herself that it's truly all right, this life. Hand to mouth. Flick ash. Repeat. 5. The bullet's death isn't open to view, not the reality as it occurs. The film maker, with his bag of tricks can furnish a simulacrum of the event: the liver smashed, the green bile flowing out from a punctured duct, the thick purple blood as it's pumped from a vena cava well torn by the lead's tumbling path. He may even show you it's final resting place in the small of the back behind the heart, but it isn't the truth, the real beauty of its death, all shape lost, trapped in an animal's juice. He must obey the conventions as his genre instructs. He must show us the look on her face before this scene can be left for the next. The one with the cops and their tape, and a van with reporters, cameras, a satellite dish. 6. The knife has no experience of death. In the right hand it may strike, again and again, in and out of a man's sight or that of anyone else, a small boy child perhaps waking up to see the strange act. The arm, the hand, the steel blade, shiny and dark. The red color, in it's rhythm, appearing like paint. What is this? he must think. He didn't know a knife could do that. 7. The epilogue is still to be written out. The bullet is spent, the woman's life is at peace, but the knife still exists, and the hand that once used it. All the unknowns, the mysterious reasons, the complex emotions, belong to a future that must go on living without either of them in the picture. There's more of the tale to be told, and more that can't ever enter the tale. This is only a starting point for whatever comes after.

2003-06-30T22:59:00.000-04:00

Listening to Joni Mitchell, thinking of Astrud Gilberto how her voice is so world weary as she speaks of love without the irony that always sounds from joni's lips and the helpless frenzy and fatalism of the song she sings in Court and Spark - you know which one that is? Astrud gives instead the helplessness of despair singing her happy songs in english, a language not her own, not the one her daughter sings in unless she wants to play with sound. * * * What is my business? What do I have here in the restless hours of each day's complaint that others do not have? I wonder why I complain about anything. I have all this time, and like a good dog it will do anything I ask. I just have to ask. * * * Bodies. The body decides. I used to think it was my mind, or will (some seamless thing) or temptation, a weakness of soul that made me catapult into the crazy life, grasping that changing sense, naming it desire, pleasure, the next great idol to offer prayers to, place above all else, marking time as intervals between each trip, each peel, each bubbled hiss of slippered skin on skin, as if this thing inside the head kept track of decisions or accounted the cost. But now I know it comes from below. Just a body wanting itself and nothing else, free, out of space out of mind, running, panting, jumping, wailing feeling the wind, breath, cold air, hot flesh - hearing bach as paradise when other don't. * * * My seasons are seen in the colors of my son and daughter. Their hair that streaks and lightens in the summer sun, their bodies that brown to match the hair. I see my years there too, in the line of my son's jaw the lengthening limbs, the voice that now deepens to a tone matching his father, so that we are all confused on the telephone. Why dye my hair anymore? Hide from mirrors at the stores, shopping for clothes? Even now, my daughter's torso, like a model or a Bond girl, the slight curve of hip, the jaunty look, a smile that makes me know the time too well. * * * Asti spumante. The clink of weak crystal, glass on glass and the sweet rush of bubbles on tongue and throat. To seventeen years, we said, to seventeen. And after - quiet. Only the voices of others, a laughter from sun and too much wine.

2003-06-14T13:28:00.000-04:00

Cross Gospel of _____________, Scroll II, Fragment 2.e Translator: Mark S. (3-5-97) 10. And the Teacher spoke to them saying: Why do you seek outside the door of the temple for that which is inside its walls? Know that what is not seen is not before you, and what you seek is visible to all who will open their eyes. 11. And his disciples looked to each other and said among themselves: What can he mean by such words? Is he not the one promised by the scriptures as we ourselves have said? 12. But the Teacher, knowing the confusion and doubt in their hearts, said: Truly all things will be revealed to you as I have promised. You must cease to search for what can never be known, and come to the quiet of the night as a child in the arms of his mother waits for comfort in sleep. For as you call upon the Father so shall I call upon you, and my prayers will be answered and you shall awake to know all things as they are in the open light of day and thus be satisfied. * Journal entry, June 2, 1999 (Matthew B.) Story idea - He watched her stretch at the bar. Her feet were long and narrow, far longer than was normal in a dancer of her stature. The leg which she'd lifted bowed slightly inward so that her toes pointed to the mirror and covered the reflection of her face. Hair drawn back in a ponytail with a short piece of red fabric (silk?), she reached hands past her toes. Her hips are too wide, he thought. He imagined her for a moment in his bed, her head turned from him as it was now, her legs split wide and open, inviting him in with the arch of her back. Then she took her leg down, and he turned away, not wanting her to catch a glimpse of what he'd seen. This is based on a girl I saw at my tai chi class. I imagined her as a dancer because of how long her legs and arms are. I always stand behind her, two rows back. I wanted to write a story about her, but this is all I have for now. I don't know if I want the guy in the story to fall in love with her yet or not. But he will be obsessed with her, I think. I have to find some angle to to put them together, to add conflict. Maybe he is her stepbrother? Something. Time for a beer. Mike better not have drunk the last two in the fridge. (*wicked laugh*) * Song (or poem) written by Marya L. in January, 1998 Who can say where the road will go? I never know, I never know - but it isn't the same road as yours will be. And who can say if night is stronger than day, if love lasts or dies, if you will love me in some other life? I sing my prayers for you to be as lost upon your road as I am lost in you, as I am lost to you. Here, take my cross, its silver and gold from this chain around my neck, take it and know that women weep not for anything you take away, and not for a life without your love but only for the road they travel on and what a day it is to walk its path to place one foot, and then the next walking step by step, away * Gospel of _____________, Scroll I, Fragment 1.g Translator: Mark S. (7-26-97) 19. And as they came the high hills of that place, his disciples were afraid and tried to dissuade him from going further on the road. They said to him: There are bandits here, master, and it is not safe for us to travel in the night. Surely they will set upon us and take what little we have, even our robes, leaving us naked in the wilderness. Please Master, let us go to an inn and continue our journey in the morning. 20. And they feared he would rebuke them, and so bowed their heads, and lay upon the ground at his feet and prostated themselves. 21. But he saw their fear and said: Do you not love me? In your company I will be safe. For you walk with the Father, and I walk with you and will not fear the night so long as you are with me. * Journal entry, June 17, 1999 (Matthew B.) We spoke tonight for the first time. She was outside a bar, crying. I didn't know her at first, just stopped to ask if she was all right, needed someone to call her a cab. When she looked up, she said: Do I know you? I could think of nothing to say except I've watched you dance. She smiled. Maybe she remembered me? Do you want to get a cup of coffee? I've decided to write this in the first person. Someone told me third person is too detached for a love story. So is this about love? I don't know yet. Maybe it's just about the sex. Maybe. If I ever figure out how to write a sex scene. If I ever get them past that cup of coffee. The girl at the class wasn't there the other night. Did I ever say she has black hair? She's asian - maybe filopino? Someone told me she's over 30. Her nose is sort of squashed on her face, makes her look younger than she is. To be honest, when I masturbate now I see her face. * Poem written by Marya L. December, 1998 How can I keep from singing? The trees are angry with the wind, and slap themselves with leaves, trying to catch it. They are not the only ones but my voice is too small to make a noise not blown away beneath the racing clouds which the dog no longer sees, though I see her at night, stumbling over my visions of black - her muzzle beautiful in sleep. Like a child I lament, travel to the mountains where the trees don't grow. Churches only color the light, but mountains color themselves & never in black, not even under the field of stars which ink surrounds - they keep their grays. They are not dogs. * Gospel of _____________, Scroll IV, Fragment 4.b Translator: Mark S. (12-22-97) 44. And he stood upon the mountaintop, and the light of the Father shone upon him, and the angels appeared singing words of praise and glory. To his disciples he spoke thus: Though I go now to the Father, you are always in me, for it was you who called me forth and now you who sends me away. You are the source of all power and glory, on earth and in heaven. Shine your light upon me and be gracious unto me, for as I go now to the Father, even so shall I dwell in your temples and worship you. 45. And his disciples were amazed at all that he spoke to them that day, and wondered at it. 46. But when he was done teaching to them, he said: It is time. Let me go with your blessing, I beseech you, and grant me your peace. And when they looked up he was gone, and the angels no longer sang his praises, and the sky filled their eyes with its emptiness. And they departed from that place and did not speak to one another of what they had seen and heard, but kept it in their hearts. * Journal entry, June 30, 1999 (Matthew B.) I finished the story last night, but then I threw it out. This is the 4th time now I've done that. I can't concentrate on it, can't concentrate on anything. All I do is see her face, staring out at me. Who can write like this? Jesus. The news says they've arrested a suspect. Some ex-boyfriend. In the video he looks like a bouncer or something, just fucking huge. Jesus, but I can't get her out of my head. I need a drink. Or maybe Mike still has some weed left he'd let me have. Fucking Christ. I never even talked to her. Poem written by Marya L., undated (found on her home computer's screen, June 26, 1999) there's a god in the small places i've been. she watches me, her face showing lines of grief and joy for what could be, what is now, what never was. i take love from her when I drink wine, when my songs are sung in darkened rooms when I drive all night upset at rain, when i play with my niece upon the floor among dustballs and the toys of little girls. in her smile i see myself. i know that i am innocent to her. a god of all the smallest things a child can know, can love, can ever cry about.

2003-06-14T13:19:00.000-04:00

The rains sounds like static on the radio, or butter simmering in a shallow pan before we add our pork, teriyaki-dipped, into the heated fat. My children, too, have that look of golden brown, of rice mixed with shoyu, but they drown out the rain's sound with their own. Picking up the phone, I place my call to the pharmacist. Seen from memory as we talk - white coat, white hair, the face of grandfather, calm as the rain sounds. Yes, the approval is in, the prescription filled. I give my thanks. The rain pauses, The tv volume gets louder. My children try to make themselves heard. Tomorrow, it will rain in the morning, but die off in the afternoon. Tomorrow morning my daughter starts her new medicine, and in the afternoon we'll discover what's to become of her. The only thing for it, they say. Such a difference - you'll see. You must trust your doctors. I grab keys for a trip to the store. It's raining again. My face is wet, as wet as the concrete and asphalt. I hear how the rain must sound to itself in the absence of children.

2003-06-03T09:37:00.000-04:00

There are times in a day when the voice wants to change: explore all the possibilities involved with sound, break itself into soreness, roughen up the beautiful strings just to hear difference, green as a pearl in the seaweed, that same wave as light brings when obscured. Or the voice wants to wander away, take a trip into the deeper place of the loud, raucous, dangerous- ly excessive and unfeeling self - a distorted trumpet blat on the walls of the cave. This is when insanity beckons, not from loss but an abundance of faith, the greed of the moment, fruit, cheese, bread in one's teeth, wine lapped up on the tongue - the amazed effect it creates all important, the new stone to worship when taste, scent, touch, the running juice on the lips are all one. These are the times it must be appeased with less, and that is the trick, isn't it? Parceling out the tenderest pleasures without speech, without throwing them off to the wind where they might sail into harm. They must be kept, a woman in bed, pregnant with child.

2003-06-01T12:33:00.000-04:00

While waiting for a single stone to be placed 1. Not seizure, motion - the butterfly's flit of wings in the breeze, without specific direction, with only its flight as the key. 2. Shadows lie in wait for me. Even the dark won't dispute the reach they make with their limbs. The mystery is in temptation. Friends speaking behind your back, knives out, quick stabs, then a lapse into compassion. A flower that opens then shuts, a prison of petals beautifully rough in embrace. 3. Avoidance is absence mollified, stifled, the empty resistance of the hand sweeping past and finding no match for its strength no antagonist. Covered up and forgotten in the wake of this movement she lurks behind in the stillness. Come play! she begs. 4. Yes, he cried. I saw the tears. She doesn't believe because the words were not hers: spoken to the whirlwind with her voice of open sores. How to explain the sadness of men to this girl child of mine? That not all speech can be heard? That even male eyes can sing about loss, have regrets no voice knows? We have our prayers, her and I, and a certain comfort that is, but what does he have within this body enclosed? Only my skin against his, shoulders abreast, the touch of our arms fingers, hands - the texture of this. 5. My tasks no longer put off, I celebrate under sun, under clouds, the sweat which cools down my skin, the high ceilings of stores I walk in, the filtered glow of trac lights, all the stuff on display when I look about. The pleasure I see of a young man at work, selling to me what I want, is my gift, and I get back his self-satisfaction. His competent face the sure sign that life wants to find grace, forget grief. Payment's on credit. I don't have the cash. 6. My sister says I've known worse and I don't argue the point. But it's not the blow of the hammer when what shatters is glass.

2003-05-27T19:01:00.000-04:00

Without any edges what wind there is keeps silent today, and immortality must be like this ice, a shining glaze circumscribing our view, a solid halo.

I hope so says the girl, anxious for life and the birds keep quiet, knowing the truth; that ice preserves, encases, but also kills - beautiful though it appears to us, frosting our windows. it cannot be trusted - all sculpture is deadly. and the grass crinkles underfoot. the dog is unsteady, old claws sounding their dissonant rhythms, looking for purchase, not finding any - fear in the blind is a terrible sight, and now it's the girl who's remaining quiet, who knows without thinking a crippled gait is a portent.

2003-05-27T19:00:00.000-04:00

I have two coffees at my desk: one that's cold, and the new one, still hot to my touch. So that's the way I am today - on the edge of distraction, carefully trying to match words to my pictures. Below my feet, the dog snarls lying on the floor, afraid of movement, my daughter's constant ministrations. You are a patient - this to the dog, but she could mean me. She doesn't know her help isn't an answer. * I watch my neighbor pamper his boat, the full-sized one, not the toy collectible. We wave at each other, the same old pleasantries exchanged. At the funeral, the marines had stood stiffly proud in their dress blues. At the front of the church a Christian rock band played some gospel tunes. The minister said don't be afraid to console them in the weeks to come, don't be afraid to speak about the death of their son. The need will still reside in their home for many months. I can't get past hellos and talk about the weather. His boat's alive - rich maple facade reflecting the sun. * My sister-in-law's father is dying hard in Iowa. An accident loading liquid fertilizer. He's a hero - saved a young man, held him down in an alkaline bath to neutralize the chemical spilled. Forgot to save himself. Acid burned the upper half of his body's skin. Scoured the lungs and ate them away. Sixty percent? Maybe worse. He can't talk, the throat burned. Only the slightest pressure of fingers, their crackling skin telling her he's still aware of himself. We've been told don't try to call for the next three days. * I see their car last night, on Interstate 70, racing east to his intensive care room in Des Moines. My brother drinking cokes. Driving past 80 mph. She's in the backseat with the kids: her hyperactive 3 year old, his one year old brother and the baby at her breast, days old, hungry for milk. * Boxes are a daughter's drums behind my chair. A song's being made. Or a play. The doctor is in. Paperwork's being done. Scenery drawn. I'm waiting for the poem I want to write about angels. *

2003-05-24T17:39:00.000-04:00

the things I know now I see it in him: the I-must-hide-the-fat-look as he stares at himself reflected in glass, his oncoming paunch and the question he can't ask - how much time is there left? + my skillet's a wonder sleek pan, a flat steel with silvery shine polished in water under my hands, wire brush scarring its metal in fine well-scored lines those built up black corners, that will not come clean, are the only sure sign of the use I have made + the cans are growing in our garage - mostly coke, ginger ale - in large plastic bags, black with cinched yellow ties. I forget how much each one may be worth. a nickel? a dime? not much more than that, but with so many I'm sure it adds up to enough money for some future treat - for myself? yes, but I'm not inclined to liquidate yet. until then it's just another savings account + it seems you can do nicely with much less than you have. for example take kidneys - take all but a third and that's enough for the fluids your body might need, or might crave but at some tipping point there's no hope anymore. this condition is called chronic renal failure and they tell me no one does transplants at this hospital.

2003-05-24T13:41:00.000-04:00

I've dropped the bleu cheese dip Now its just carrots, their sweet crunch of emptiness, the crackle they make when I bite into them. I always feel something's not right, that something is missing but then, in an hour, my belly reminds me when it takes the shape of a rounded Biafran from sometime in the seventies, the same ugly distention. They had nothing to eat - poor starving babies - and I can eat nothing without it affecting me. Well, it's not the same thing, of course - I know this is only the first circle of suffering. + He was small, but the hair was all large, wavy dark curls - clearly an arab. The daughter dressed like all of her peers in denim jeans and and a tee with its cutaway sleeves, her small pony tail tied up behind her, but the mother was still a faithful observer: a scarf tightly wrapped, showing only her face and its slight, timid gestures. Their eyes, deepest brown, filled up the room as their voices, all whispers and soft tones, tried to hide what they saw. Even the boy, no more than four. + One has to be precise when cleaning a bathroom. First take everything from the counter and, with a wipe, remove all the dust. Spray on a cleaner, something bound to be toxic to germs and dust mites, any leftover viruses. While it's doing its work, move to the toilet bowl, squeeze out the product designed to eradicate all the rank fungus that's been gowing so long. Then windex the mirror, and make sure you squeek off the blue alcohol mist one paper towel at a time. Don't forget: wear a mask, and rubber gloves are a must to protect yourself from the filth. + I read this essay about difficult poems, how to read them without too much frustration, too much self-doubt. It wasn't clear to me whether he was being satirical but, nonetheless, I took it to heart. And how could I not, for it's well known that those are all that I write. + The world outside is never as pretty as after a rainstorm, clouds still in the sky, but now starting to dissipate, with sunlight in rays frosting the trees. The grass is as green as the green that's in Ireland and the flower blooms, wet, glisten their charms. Too soon it's all spoiled when the lawnmowers come. + I've tried to imagine bombs blasting away buildings, the smell of burnt flesh and hot asphalt, smoke and particulates - but I can't. My explosions have always been fireworks, my bullets, aimed at inanimate targets. My violence has always been personal - a man with a fist, or sharp pointed boots kicking my head and the ribs in my chest. All of my terrorists have shown themselves first. + People will ask: What's the connection? What's the point of all this? And most times they don't speak so direct, but I hear each pause and each silence. I'm ashamed I can't tell them. Ashamed I can't speak about what it is that I know: Here, in these fingers, healed but mishappen. Here, in gray hairs on my wrists and my arms. Here, in these scars that circle my navel, and ring round my right ear. They still want an old dog's laboured breathing, a purposeful panting, somehow signaling Spring.

2003-05-24T13:31:00.000-04:00

I have two coffees at my desk: one that's cold, and the new one, still hot to my touch. So that's the way I am today - on the edge of distraction, carefully trying to match words to my pictures. Below my feet, the dog snarls lying on the floor, afraid of movement, my daughter's constant ministrations. You are a patient - this to the dog, but she could mean me. She doesn't know her help isn't an answer - sometimes we still die. * I watch my neighbor pamper his boat, the full-sized one, not the toy collectible. We wave at each other, the same old pleasantries exchanged. At the funeral, the marines had stood stiffly proud in their dress blues. At the front of the church a Christian rock band played some gospel tunes. The minister said don't be afraid to console them in the weeks to come, don't be afraid to speak about the death of their son. The need will still reside in their home for many months. I can't get past hellos and talk about the weather. His boat's alive - rich maple facade reflecting the sun. * My sister-in-law's father is dying hard in Iowa. An accident loading liquid fertilizer. He's a hero - saved a young man, held him down in an alkaline bath to neutralize the chemical spilled. Forgot to save himself. Acid burned the upper half of his body's skin. Scoured the lungs and ate them away. Sixty percent? Maybe worse. He can't talk, the throat burned. Only the slightest pressure of fingers, their crackling skin telling her he's still aware of himself. We've been told don't try to call for the next three days. * I see their car last night, on Interstate 70, racing east to his intensive care room in Des Moines. My brother drinking cokes. Driving past 80 mph. She's in the backseat with the kids: her hyperactive 3 year old, his one year old brother and the baby at her breast, days old, hungry for milk. * Boxes are a daughter's drums behind my chair. A song's being made. Or a play. The doctor is in. Paperwork's being done. Scenery drawn. I'm waiting for the poem I want to write about angels. * Without any edges what wind there is keeps silent today, and immortality must be like this ice, a shining glaze circumscribing our view, a solid halo.

2003-05-24T13:17:00.000-04:00

the song of loss and hope dogwood trees snow white and pink their petals pushed down to the grass which cannot help but feel their weight the dog herself cannot stand up, because a breeze would bring collapse beneath the clouds in half-sunlight for when the rain's like slantwise knives, like rusting grates, like pain enough the curtain's drawn against the sight and no one watches what they want when night forgets to bring the stars and dusk broods long on city streets a penny please, a penny sir! she shouts, she stops, she drags herself when passing ears have lost their youth distraction holds them all in place - the girl, the dog, the rained on night are left behind to seek themselves to find the grass or something else which cannot speak or hurt or spill a drop of water from the well

2003-05-11T12:57:00.000-04:00

Unspoken Time to go shopping, the list is made and all the items I need are on a small page in pencil - but not the ones that I would keep close to my breasts, covered up, secret. These wants cannot be written in ink, cannot be typed, can never be entered on any hard drive. They have no season, fill no bellies with treats, slake no thirst a tongue can make known. Sometimes, in the absence of others I take them out, smother with kisses their tender necks. O, how they like that - all the attention. Like little starved children the only confusion is what to taste first. I confess my wrong doing, ask their forgiveness - but comprehension? Who can say what they know, hidden away from the light for so long? I listen - imagine the sounds are happy ones. I do not tell them the depth of my grief, how I wish they could have been chosen.

2003-05-08T18:08:00.000-04:00

The nest over the lamp outside has more twigs this year, less flutter of wings, an emptier porch and I don't want to look at eggs reflected in mirrors or otherwise, don't want to steal away moths, observe their wings in a jar. I keep away from trees that cannot bloom but a few sprigs of purple and white - that great green shadow of life which I can't pretend is invisible stuff - only the breeze inspires a breath filling the hope/dream of my chest. * We sat in those two easy chairs, part of a triangle whole, sometimes telling, sometimes watching the swivel explain what we knew - of fears on parade within our child, impulses she cannot gather inside, her voice's desperate joy, unruly and loud when winning the game - the same tumult when losing - the loss of speech when control can't be found. A label isn't what we want, only the option: chemical or not? Focus our daughter's attention with antidepressants or ritalin? The question we don't ask: this time, will it work? + The nih called and it's all arranged - another appointment, another chance to beg for some relief. Give me my paper authorization, give me the promise of new medications, not for dry hope, just for the change - after sitting so long I just want to shake. Running in place always loses its charm. I crave destinations - anything strange. Lousy at quilt-making, I need a new pattern. Lousy with symptoms, I need alterations.

2003-04-18T19:09:00.000-04:00

pale blue sky, power lines, trees and pottery bowls, glazes catching the sun. you think of them before colored markers and pens found their home inside them - just clay, red brown or grey on the wheel, spinning around the potter's hands as he dreams of the evening yet to come, imagines his lunch in a brown bag, pastrami on whole wheat bread, the open air breeze from the window above. the slow whir of a ceiling fan - many things that run: deer, cats, the unleashed dog chasing birds, chasing squirrels around trees, the slow wave of evergreens on a berm with its house underneath. inside, a woman at rest breathing hard, his wife at home, the bedsheets pulled up to cover legs unshaven for weeks. the thin grace of fine hairs curved, bent or straight, resisting the flat press of flat sheets, playing with crackling static and sparks - so soft. he thinks how much he prefers his hands touching her legs running up and across, chasing her sex - how much he misses that sitting at work, the wheel which now makes his moment to moment, his scrape after scrape of clay that's not needed, dyes and glazes and oven heat waiting as patient as short, even breaths and tapping feet: tap-tap, tap-tap on the concrete; these sounds a chant of unseen things and words never spoken by flesh into shapes. not yet two round lumps with green and blue stripes, and curved smudged dots. not yet your useable knicknacks.

2003-03-04T11:32:00.000-05:00

thoughts catapulted by carrots and bleu cheese dip 1 and please don't laugh, I'm serious at least half the time, never less than that when I'm eating for my health. 2 I had a dream last night. We were watching my father's football team before our hike up a mountain trail, in a bar or restaurant. We talked politics but nothing changed: certainly not my arguments, nor his mind. We fight, I think to communicate because love is not a word that he can speak - at least that's the side that I relate. 3 my daughter asked with her mysterious voice (that's how I knew it was a test) what sense would I least regret to lose? I did my mental arithmetic: first eyes, than ears, then taste. At last I imagined myself unable to feel heat, ice, silk, skin tearing across the pavement as I fell from my bike - but I knew enough not to select touch. "We all picked smell" and I agreed that was the best if any one had to be given up. 4 I used to hate bleu cheese dressing, the crumbled lumps of white with bluegreen mold interlaced throughout, but it, like so much else, is an acquired taste. (time for a sip of coffee now before it cools) 5 somewhere in my brain complex thoughts keep percolating - what if a word could do justice in a murder case or make a man begin again to love his wife? Could I dare to write if ? if ? if ? is that really what I want? lets pretend it works. I'll string some words and tell me please if they bring you a woman's tears falling on her pillow at night making a wet spot by a cheek that's scarred and rough instead of soft. you want to know what makes the tears? but I resist. causes make no difference is my belief. perhaps the dog has died at last, perhaps her hip joints hurt too much to sleep, perhaps small creatures in her sheets have sent a million prayers for salt and she's their angel dispensing gifts. no matter, because, in truth, there were no tears for her to cry tonight. 6 (time to reheat my cup, 45 seconds should do the trick) I'm tired of carrots and bleu cheese dip, and 30 seconds was more than enough. 7 my father was beaten as a child. fists to the face that sort of thing. 8 tonite's the night when we play cards at the neighbors house next door to ours. we are a matched set. one child each in 8th and second grade. two pairs and both will be banished to the basement for nintendo games or videos or whatever trouble they get into before someone screams to spoil it all. upstairs, we'll make small talk while everyone munches on less fat snacks. during a pinochle game I'm sure we'll discuss the latest news about our friends across the street. how well they're holding up or not. about the bedroom shrine they made for a firstborn son not coming home again. we'll sympathize as each trick is played and bids are made. no doubt listen more that we usually do to all the basement noise below. 9 he doesn't blame my grandfather (so he says) and I hear of how at 17 he almost killed the man from someone else. with us, he used his belt to beat our beds when we were kids and made us scream fake agony for his wife's sake. don't tell he said. and neither will I. 10 a nice round number I think and a good place to contemplate what's going on around me: the tv son zoned out on the couch. the daughter making bump-bump-thump somewhere else. my dog's asleep. so pretty when she is (like now) curled up, paws bent and head reclined to show the gray that underlines her lower jaw. but things will change. they're changing as I type. I can't keep up. 11 the last thing heard before I awoke: you'll never know how wrong about all this you are.

2003-03-04T11:26:00.000-05:00

Draft Screenplay: On reading Tom Andrews BLACK SCREEN

Narrator: here were my thoughts - FADES TO: scene: my life as a frame, encompassing your canvas (how we do this is yet to be decided, but some really gaga fx I'm sure).

Narrator: by which is meant you lived and died a hemophiliac's death between the covers of my book. scene: camera cuts rapidly (a montage shot): - to a motocross bike with a crucified Jesus aboard the rider's shirt - a hospital, double room, a codeine shot being fed into a boy/man's rump - closeup of his eyes as they glaze (what color?) - closeup of a girl's face reading Dante's Inferno (aloud?) - the boy's eyes (again) - the girl's eyes scanning right to left, right to left - the boy's mouth, small grin beginning - the snore of a man dying in the next bed

from congestive heart disease (can that be imitated?) - the girl speaking (we see just lips) "That ankle is hot enough to fry an egg!" - the boy's smile (has it changed? we're not sure) - a grave site, headstone with white flowers in a summer breeze

Narrator: you brought back the memory of pain which doesn't relent, and your description of it was the same as the one I would have made when my heart's skin was trying to burst, bubbling up, rubbing off my lungs, liver, stomach - pain felt through the codeine as I vomited up chicken broth - that somehow this was transformative, I could die happy despite being a virgin, despite never having children, despite blah blah blah . . . scene: imago of Tom in three dimensions (can we do this as a 3D flick?), grainy, blue background. Tom is floating in this aether (well, yes, but they won't mind, it's the willing suspension of disbelief, right?). His face shows no emotion, but that may be because it lacks focus, we cant' say. He opens his arms to us, reaching out in that classic 3D effect (we'll have to warn parents not to bring small children)

Tom: (ok, he has to say something here, but we'll put it through a sound mix and wash away anything intelligible to leave an eerie quality to the voice, a wail of some sort) FADE TO: scene: the narrator standing against some sort of landscape (me really, but we'll get someone like Kelly McGillis, to play the part) and she's nude from the shoulder up, still talking but nothing can be heard as music plays, samba music perhaps . . . )

background vocals: random voices are heard speaking as the music fades (but never completely stops), angry, male and female voices alike, shouting as scene: Tom and the Narrator are superimposed on one another. (if we want an R rating this is where we show Kelly's breasts, the real sagging breasts of a middle aged woman, and Tom's hands pushing through them, out into the audience like an offering)

Narrator (shouting to be heard): What does she look like! What does she look like, dammit! FINIS (we'll try it at Sundance as a short, then an option to IFC? great.)

2003-03-04T11:24:00.000-05:00

the belief that illness makes you more sensitive to suffering is a false positive, a self- delusion. the truth is less. sickness cocoons the greedy ones as easily as enabling empathy for others who endure their pains without the need to spell them out for all to see. a test but not a guide. pierce your skin with a knife and what comes to mind? your self collapsed within the throbbing and the blood you watch spill out across what's left unharmed. somewhere a saint reflects, and in her ignorance all else evaporates, denuded by what agony cannot relieve. she cries. I wish I knew what she can feel, desensitized by faith. a warmth in winter melting snow. my heart.

2003-03-04T11:23:00.000-05:00

Invocation on a Sunday morning i He's a small man, kneeling down, elbows on a chair in backwater China. Hands open, face raised, he prays. His look, it must be one of absolute trust. I can't be sure. I wasn't there. Nonetheless, this prayer received its answer for here you are telling me this story of your grandfather and I can see that face - a mystery of finitude embraced within an endless grace that I believe as well, or wish to think I do. ii You look through the mirror at her failure to understand what you perceive - the mirror at your feet, and then look up at the mirror above to see yourself reflected with all the rest that you can know - not enough, yes not, and yet its beautiful. What could be more? iii It's a religious poem, don't be offended even if it cannot open any door for you. There are other poems better ones, the ones that you will write or read tonight. Imagine them right now, please, as saying everything that this one does. They're all the same despite the veil. And you will be my teacher. Please, I want to hear. iv. The piano has a new tune to play. For a brief second it overrides the tv. Not many notes. There are a C, B flat, G. The rest elude my ability today. The moment leaves behind its melody - a tune transcribed only by words I'm afraid, and my memory of what cannot be shown with words. v. The coffee has cooled but still tastes sweet as I awake. Goodbye.

2003-03-04T11:17:00.000-05:00

not the unified field as we know it 1 the hum, not so quiet, how it grates on my ear. then a hiss, its sound inconsistent as an aerosol mist flows into each breath, a haze for young eyes as they drift back and forth, out of self, out of dream, out of dark and of light and my arms cradling. but her hand still keeps grasping the mask, holding it to the face I see through the plastic, until the red dragon leaves, or at least becomes silent. 2 sleep is uncertain. walk into dream or out in the world. wear a red robe. forget what it covers. forget each new instant but remember the children. their tears melted butter. are they yours? does it matter? the problem's not fixable, but you cannot say so. 3 the bathroom sign says its only for colored. the one you step into. the one in Cincinnati, Ohio. and all of them in there stand amazed at your nature, the pink of your fingers, your red strawberry hair. you finish your business, tell them: it's been 50 years, this is senseless but their faces say different. 4 its dark and the animals eyes look luminous and uncaring at Peter and Katherine who stare back to scare them. and with laughter they do, these fictive immortals but they scare me also along with the drumbeats heard in the background 5 newspapers are calling: they claim to bring pleasure. they claim to give knowledge. like sirens that come from the streets on an ambulance (but not those known to the ancients) the call is insistent, and the claims are all dangerous, and the answers are distant. 6 our couch is paired with a television, and this chair with a desk, and these words with this screen, for speed is measured by time, and time is measured by motion, and my time is so fleeting. 7 the red dragon is tossing. it rumbles in sleep, in the cave of her chest and she feels it breathing a fire on skin and in aches and under eyes, weary half-moons colored purplish grey. what was the dream and what the reality of the night that passed over and left her this day? 8 I look at the snow out my window as it becomes pitted from drizzle, and what was white becomes shaded. the red berries still decorate the branches of trees all frozen and dried despite the wet sky. 9 eight is a number that's magic. and twelve and thirteen. three. two. also one. and magic is needed by my daughter, by me, by the light as it moves. so we count the numbers with what time allows, but it isn't enough. we're moving too slow.

2003-01-11T15:08:00.000-05:00

the house quiets itself, the TV off one child asleep the other upstairs at last the night has fallen to me and my slender peace tap tappety tap on the keys

as I write this

the dog, though, still not at rest partially blind from milk blue cataracts

and partially deaf

she waits, impatient oh yes, she waits old age, her crutch and I wait as well for what we both expect will come this winter, perhaps

2003-01-11T15:05:00.000-05:00

cool breeze It's the translucent quality of the light, the delicate way it falls across the crib making shadow slats touch her infant face, her thumb in her mouth, the suck-suck- suck of sound that competes with the hum of the electric fan blowing the thin little hairs on her head, cooling her cheeks, rustling the folds of the blanket that bundles her warmth, keeps in her body's heat. She will wake to the restless urge of a mother picking her up, clutching her as if she might die in those arms; taut muscles which are painful to watch. The littlest cry is all her mother wants, but she is an obedient child, fills the room with her noise, unable to understand a mother's tears washing down into hers. Unaware, as well, that coffins come in every size, even XS for babies who suddenly die in their cribs, the heat slipping away from their tiny forms whether or not the fan was left on.

2003-01-11T15:00:00.000-05:00

my pages, this poem here is a pome or a poem or whatever you choose to call what it does to your senses eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and lips and more than whatever those represent to you, dearest reader, or so i presume to name you dear,

but mean it affectionately, for we are a pair, the two of us, but who is the soldier, who is the leader can you answer me, do you dare say little reader? can we begin again, begin over, begin at the beginning

shall we start over? we shall pretend we are familiar, we shall dance and sing songs, stumble when we drink ourselves drunk, kiss and makeup after hardships long long after the sun sets over the arctic of your lamp,

an expansive time for kissing you, telling you i am the one that you must remember musk scented arms and damp and wet under

don't disappoint, keep reading me lover or should we fight, be enemies demons and derelicts, scum to be squashed by each other be eradicated, debilitated simply O! so simply depised and hated i could hate you if that's what you need me for hate you cold with a vengeance or hot with a fury or tepid and lukewarm with the fiercest indifference, painted white

like a movie screen but why not love me and i will love too, I will breathe cinnamon dreams to your lungs scale the alps, keep you young in the pages between my book on your nightstand, my pages, this poem, or whatever it is, just don't end me, keep reading and reading and reading of, for, about me and i'll write to you, write for you, write everything and we shall have

symmetry

2003-01-11T14:57:00.000-05:00

three wishes what I want are simple, quiet noises like

the hum of a gnat's wings,

a baby bird's breath,

whatever else is underneath the range of my hearing, those thin vibrations across space pressing upon eardrums and not making

a sound, or the taste

of pleasant things in my mouth like mint ice cream with dark chocolate bits, lemon meringue pie, strawberries and fresh, whipped cream, too sugary for anyone else but me, maybe a juicy steak, nearly raw, its cold center and charbroiled black stripes the kind I can't make

for myself, maybe a dream of all my past lovers in bed but this time I'm doing it right, not giving them what they want, but taking from them all the stroking of hands, the rhythm of skin against skin, everything that I want for once, drowning in my own greed.

2003-01-11T14:56:00.000-05:00

Memory pieced together with glue and paper What I can remember - He was too small, but had a perfect mouth - he used it like a technician, learned to love all my lips - His tongue was long, and flat and hard/soft/wet, and god came to me in threes, with his fingers in it. - he didn't know why I held him in my hand, felt soft harden every time the tube was on - He yelled when drunk, dance stomped a nasty tune but only with his words. - don't be like daddy is what I said - He didn't like my Barry White, but put up with it when we smoked weed and fucked. - I rode on top, held up by hands on freckled breasts, he said you're my white angel - He never liked to call me slut or rough me up when I asked. - wanted me to dominate and tie him up - I left that boy for Jay, my married man who did all the things I wanted but had never had. - an older man, he understood what danger is - He cried and threw that trashcan down the stairs but not at me. - its metal skin was dented, but I took it from him anyway - I wish I had him, some days.

2003-01-11T14:53:00.000-05:00

White Rose in a Tumbler

White Rose in a Tumbler by Piet Mondrian

i. glass Oceans spawned intentions of silica Messy grains of crumpled cyrstals Make me missile, make me fissile! Making ripples with our submarinal whines! And we took them and we shook them and we rolled them around! Our scraping surfing churned into salinity ground! Liquid bowels that blew us out sputtering we stuttered our mouths, roasted in the light and infinitely alone with our fellows, the good hearted brethren, the sisterhood the old men and women, all of their souls ripe and beatified all saints that filled the heavens unsatisfied, waiting and waiting . . . Thank-God we were found! Delivered, crushed and bled bones rarified, sifted, transformed, reborn into fire the smelter merged and joined the holy union the bliss bubbling us together We are no more but I am. I drift, awaiting my mold, a purpose, a verb, a process a cooling down from halide hot waxing a fever, the flippering fade that shivers me cold and no longer formless. Cold, but not hopeless Cold and asleep to the sound I will make. When I find what I seek. I won’t be broken. Cold, stiff and rigid and fearless - not heartless, but patient and certain - and destined for something to save, to preserve. I am arrogant with the touch I was given, the souls that were driven hot and now frozen, and relentlessly, translucently shown to behold, but in submission humbly, humbly, humbly I pray for my renown. I pray for my resurrection. I pray, but I also listen for my renown to become to end to be crystallized again. ii. rosebushes in the garden We spike, a hundred poles shorn; thorn mesas that bled, that were freed, that were led to our grief. The air once warm, now a frost dying. We are dead now in all but name. Lost are the virtues that fed us, that entertained the mystery of sustenance. A wet spirit drenching us, blessed with sun and the big blue and the ball that we worshipped, now occluded gone in the grayness, gone in the cold damp wet that buries our misery with winter’s mist, clouds sanity with solitude. We weep, anxious and still hearing the last of our children’s cries at the cutting, the separation, the end of creation. We weep without blood, without tears, at the evil we fear, the devastation of growth. iii. tap water warm energy flows into me and then is stopped filling me incompletely with your fluid touch now but ripples across my bare red blotches my ribs pressed under your heaviness our raspy breathing the sound and feeling each single drip drip drip from the end of your tap iv. artist in the moment not white not white not white but white not white but white and brown mustard brown mustard brown mustard background but not white not silver not white not silver but LAVENDER!!! i am a genius but you LORD you did that you made me elite yes the elite the genius yes lavender lavender lavender but white call it white though call it that call it white

2003-01-11T14:50:00.000-05:00

Scene at Ithaca i. Alone at the loom, she has no attendants dressed in bright colored fabrics, no voices chirping sweet, utter nonsense. Only a loom, battered and shining with the oil from her hands, and the smell of raw wool constantly present. ii. Each day, she weaves the threads, the beautiful reds, the rib ache of her blues and her purples, gold, silver, and ochre, and the rust brown that comes after small cuts on her fingers. iii. Each night, as colors fade in the torchlight, she devastates her handiwork

with meticulous care, reassembles the wool into skeins for her morning’s work. iv. She barely sleeps, doesn’t eat, doesn’t drink, the skin under her eyes the color of wine in the evening. v. Prays to the gods each sunrise to stop herself, to walk away from the weaving, to shatter the loom, burn the wood, send the room up in the flames, and dance circling the heat of its yellows and oranges and the gray ashes before her,

while feeding the fire's insatiable appetite, burning her reason, pungent as incense. vi. At sunset she pleads again to keep her hands from her loom, for the sweet paralysis of apathy, to let her creation evolve out of its misery, to say: I am finished. To say: It is done. To shout to the hangers on, the myriad of drunken men:

Here’s the damned tapestry! vii. The gods do not answer (when have they ever?) and she is compelled to follow their litany, a slave to a plot that makes her the sacrifice. viii. She imagines the poet’s voice,

the tale teller’s eyes looking at empty space,

wonders why he takes delight

in her dread monotony? Over and under,

under and through, day

after night after day

the same light, the same pinpricks of stars in the night mocking her - ix. It is not the husband she wants - husbands are failures. She cannot remember him even to fantasize, even in the poet’s mind he is dead to her, dead as the dried husk of her sex, her menopausal seizures,

dead as leaves on the olive trees in winter’s cold atmosphere,

dead as her breasts that point down to a stone floor. x. In her deepest thought, discovered over and over, she dreams

of her son as her savior,

dreams the warmth of a boy’s skin, the curve of his hips in her hands, his face hairless and smooth without razors, the sweet odor of breath when he speaks, his eyes, the pout of his lips, his kiss on her shoulder -

A son is all to a mother, xi. dependent and rescuer, she wants him beside her naked and softer than fathers,

wants to masturbate his flesh into hers, bring the white milk to the top of his tower, drench herself in its lather,

forget the shame of her nightly destruction, make a new king to sit on her throne, depose the absent deceiver. xii. But this is impossible, she knows her son is no monster, it isn't the woman he wants, only the form of a mother. Merest boy, passively loyal, not the wolf she desires,

and she is the savior,

she barters for time, barters for men, her own bastards. xiii. The poet is another man to bargain with, another man with a future

where she is a stage prop, a mere chorus of praise for masculine sagas. xiv.

She would be a killer, plot murders, hatch schemes that billow in scarlet, dry into rust in the dirt at her feet,

coagulate as her choices. Instead, she waits

to hear xv. the birds sing the same songs each day, the old dog moan in his sleep each night the same, teeth stained and weak unable to chew bones, unable to rest peacefully. xvi. It is madness, her compulsive insanity. The madwoman weaving, unweaving her tapestry. She curses her son, her name, the old dog as it sleeps. Curses her odyssey.

2003-01-11T14:47:00.000-05:00

Visions of an expatriate woman in various media Some Prefatory Remarks from the Museum’s Curator: Despite the rumors in certain newspapers, the paintings in this exhibit do not depict the story of one woman's life. It cannot be denied the artist has repeatedly stated that “D” (so designated here at the artist's request) was the subject of these works. I question, however, whether those statements alone can be taken as prima facie proof of the supposition that the artwork now on display was intended to present a biographical mise en scène. Though it may be tempting to view the exhibition as one which employs a cohesive and all encompassing schema (admittedly, a claim the artist has off-handedly made on occasion), in my opinion such an interpretation would ultimately prove misleading to all those who come to view this exhibit. For that reason, I want to warn anyone, who may have some preconception to the contrary, that this particular arrangement of the artist's work was more my doing, and that of my assistants, constrained as we were by budgetary and space limitations. Instead, I believe that these paintings properly should be seen as independent fragments connected only by the artist's desire to use D's life, her beliefs, ambitions, politics and personal tragedies, as a metaphor, a means of creating a higher mimesis than realism allows. One may freely surmise that certain elements of her life are presented here, but what those elements might be is best left to her future biographers, if any. We begin the exhibit with the artist's presentation of an expression of regret. In particular, note the subdued color palette which is often at odds with the strong confident lines and spare brushwork the artist employed here. 1st painting Title: She is a good girl because her daddy was a bad boy. She is speaking of emotional things, dangerous, simple and incomplete. Where she stayed when he left, times that she heard second-hand of his craziness, the laughter he shared then destroyed, the unknown quality of his face, tender in love one second and then fierce, heedless of others, heedless of his disgraces, confounding . . . And yes it’s futile, this recollection of the god of her empty places, the herald for the juxtaposition of a daughter’s love and hate and fear and pain. All the things she tried to tell him in the calm sedated times when hope felt like a possibility, not like the sour irony of his last leaving to his one and only resting place. Twenty years she still speaks of him to herself, speaks to him in the silent times when he comes back into her thoughts, and takes her away from the moments that seem like joy, and back to the only broken man who she can never release. Always she asks herself: Why couldn't he ever come home sane to us? Curator’s note on the second painting: The political undertones of this work are clearly established by the artist’s decision to adopt the style of the New Soviet Realism, with occasional surrealistic elements which add an absurdist touch. The depiction of the dictator here is not ambiguous, and one could perhaps say this best reflects D’s personal attitude. Clearly her influence on the artist can be seen in this decision, even though nothing about the finished piece hints at any specific biographical details. 2nd Painting Title: Attila prepares to go back to the spirit in the sky. He sits as a fat bug sits, fat with success and with his big cigars to which his women (he calls them his) never voice their objections. He smiles, always the smile shows, though weaker now and fading beneath the hair like Islam still jutting with pride from his chin. Old, far older than any others left in positions of power, or in opposition, he watches himself unfold each day like a movie, a frame at a time but too fast to prevent the smear that he makes on his time and his people. His people, all his, even the departed ones, he asserts like a child calling out to the world at large its whiny demands, not comprehending the difference between mine and yours. I understand he has long slender fingers that still maintain his spidery grip on the island. Does he look at them when the lights turn low and the movie enters an irresolute phase? He has always been clever and charming in his outward appearances, but what is he thinking so near to hearing the cheers, the “Oles!” that will arise at his death? Curator’s note on the 3rd painting: This is the most seriously flawed work in the exhibit and is only presented here at the insistence of the artist. Still, it has parts that some may find of interest, even if as a whole it can only be seen as a failure. 3rd Painting Title: Bad Hair and the Art of Creativity Maintenance. Nevermind, never ever does it matter, no more melancholia overit cause who cares, it's the thrill of the fall down the hole. It's building, light and airy and messed up conduction, like paper torn into pizzas, like glue on crayolas, it's new. it is WHat it is CanNot be KnoWn until we are Threw! UP UP UP and away in the sky it goes "It'll never fly" they suppose (and their right, cause it sinks, its sublimpable, it gets inside, it gets You would'nt under_stand Itt eye tell u hit's trooly incredulousable! IHATEIT ILUVIT ITMAKESMETURNBLUE!!!! BUt Somehow just Somehow, someONE just might get what you do & if they don't Nevermind, never ever does it matter, no more melancholia overit cause who cares, it's the thrill of the N E T that makes it all true. Curator’s note on the fourth painting: Aware of the controversy generated by some of the groups opposed to the exhibition of this work especially, let me assure you that nothing of a sexual nature is depicted. Nonetheless, some may find the artist’s rendering of traditional Christian beliefs and traditions objectionable. 4th Painting Title: Christ figures it out. God said Yehosha, you are my son but he wasn't listening back then, he just looked at the girl, what was her name? oh yeah - Mary (it's always a Mary) Magdalene (not a whore, just a groupie) the cute one, the one with the money. I mean he was a man, wasn't he? All man, human feelings maybe, even those itchy ones, like maybe for Mary? But you know fathers they keep with the lectures, they never stop talking, and well, eventually even a boy has to listen (maybe after an all night out drinking?) well, so they tell me - hey, it happens. And its hard not to hear with a head that keeps pounding until finally, finally that son word sunk in. But what does it all mean (this to the father) Well, he got the whole answer and he liked the part where he lives for forever. But what is this cross bearing thing have to do with that and Dad must have smiled when he said Nevermind - you''ll understand when you come to it (fathers are funny like that) The next time Christ comes though - just a thought, call me crazy, but I bet he sticks with the ladies.