The Castle Became A Lantern
The castle in flames
aura at night crowds gather
consumed, it still stands
The castle in flames
aura at night crowds gather
consumed, it still stands
halfway through a poem I despair
everything leaves me sound & sense
form rhythm wife also & children
even they slam the door & promise
never to return tell me they are down
with this thing called poems & when
I look up & ask them not to leave not
like this that I will change my ways
begin again to use comas reconsider
how often I enjamb my lines begin again
to open myself up to the world & them
there is no house there is just blank
& still only I halfway through
the poem certain though that that first
compelling image of the infanct tossed
from a burning building caught
by a passerby will be the only thing
in the poem that matters a building
in the brutalist style home to immigrants
went up in flames & a mother
with a six-month-old saw no out
but to dangle her son from the ninth story
& drop him in hope that a man
on the sidewalk would catch him
& hold him safe there are things
the desperation of a mother
the speed of flams as they rise
the speed of a body as it falls
the hands & arms & chest that catch
absorb enclose & shelter a child
there are holy awful things of fear
& trembling that silence & prostrate
the mind of them there is nothing
to be said only the prayer to be
the man on the sidewalk who hears
the mother looks up & runs to catch the babe
Sore bodies to me
have always been reflections
of life well lived.
Be it a hard day of work
or a long day of play,
my life story can be told
by these muscles that ache.
Uncomfortable as it is,
(I’ve been squirming for hours)
I could never ask for change;
not today, when too much
sitting and laying down,
maybe curled up in the wrong ball
have yielded such serenity.
These few days haven’t been perfect
but they’ve been breathable.
My best medicine: abundant oxygen.
The good will fade away
the bad will smooth out,
and the normal will once more
be the king of every week.
But today’s pain is worthwhile.
It purges stress and heartbreak
paving the way for reclaimed success.
Lone geisha walks down an avenue
holding a saffron lantern
as if the moon had been captured
now lives at the end of a stick
and gently hovers and bobs
in a world of fog.
Her steps are small
and the colors of kimono and obi
are hidden in the folds of haze.
Only the ends of an errant willow
touch her in greeting
as she shrinks into nothingness
at the ends of avenue
and earth.
He called her bluff; and now,
day after day,
she can’t shrug off the sense
of being expendable.
She grips her drink, her hand
shakes. Friends have stopped
answering her calls. Not right.
No fight left,
no light at the end of her tunnel,
only a pillow of blackness.
It looks so soft.
Outer ribs slicked with mud and leaves
softened when the river rose
falling open like a mouth in sleep
Inside, on a wide shelf, white stone
with an amber swirl, blue bottles
topaz ring beside a bullet
a pocket and collar tugged from a red shirt
five gold buttons, a note of sums
A woman cuts stars
from a yellow jacket
The house, her history, breathes
hugs her like a tight sleeve
~ Found poem composed/modified from words in Lia Purpura’s essay “Autopsy Report”
Sometimes a poem will have his first wife
and the steps to her underground cellar,
or perhaps his second wife’s slow cook
of root crops and roasting ears. Sometimes
a poem will need his grandchildren and step-
grandchildren to move away from home,
or will hold on to steeples, fields and bedrooms
and the sweet lilacs that altar-girls
carry with beeswax candles on the eve of feasts.
Sometimes a poem will deign to present us
with bowls of beans and rice at a dinner
serenaded by the flat pickings of Doc Watson.
Sometimes he will teach us to eat after dark
and enjoy the autumn hush in the tart bite
of Gold Rush apples that Jennifer’s picked
from the third row of Reid Valley Orchard.
(after Robert Bly’s Turkish Pears)
Interviewer,
You want to know my ability?
If my character will get in the way of utility?
ask my wife
She’s my first leadership position
a reflection of my true heart’s condition
Don’t confuse the role of man
If she’s hurting, issue that reprimand
She’s looking to me to lead her
My job to open the Word and feed her
ask my wife
if I listen well after working all day
or do I snap when she’s in the way
is my expectation she cook every meal
or to engage in a relationship that’s real
am I helping her make space for passions
or trying to control all her actions
ask my wife
The truth is
I can’t fake it with this woman
like, what kind of man am I at three in the morning
Jacob screaming and she doesn’t budge
exhausted from caring for him all day
or, Hey baby, here’s the plan for the day
she looks at me like,
you didn’t ask if that was okay
take my interests into consideration
I’m not a satellite orbiting your space station
Interviewer,
You want to know my character
mix familiarity
and exhaustion
see what’s in my heart
Then praise God for compassion
Without Jesus
There’s no way I’m passin
just ask my wife
If I were cut open shame would spill out.
If a vein was opened I would bleed shame
he said.
But mostly he said, I’m sorry,
I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
I must admit, it didn’t
klick like valve sounds from the heart to me.
But a woman listening sobbed uncontrollably,
racked with despair as if possessed.
Later she told him her story.
As a child and teenager, she was molested,
molested over and over for years.
No one believed her. They believed
her brother’s outrageous fabrications,
his resolute denial.
She told the prisoner, I need to hear I’m sorry
from someone who won’t say it
and you say I’m sorry to someone
who can’t hear it. That’s what overwhelms me:
this unending spite, this bitter sorrow.
