Posts for June 13, 2018 (page 2)

her shade’s worth is weighed
by Pluto’s solemn eye.
          (a more timely death and
          mortal Minos might have been her judge
          and remembered
          that she was the one who restored to him what kings are wont to want
          by sifting snakes and scorpions from his seed.
          he might have called her then first hero among all the hapless
          women who had known him
          and sentenced her to paradise.)
but the god in gold—rubies for tongue, riches for brains, fingers soaked with rings—
in all his infinite power and all his infinite wisdom,
at least lowers his ear to heed his wife Proserpina’s whispers, and
mercifully
he places her faithless soul not
in the gape-belly of Tartarus,
but in the windless, speechless, wandering meadows
for her to lie dead with the asphodels.
 
years later, her husband’s faithless soul is given to
Elysium.

the oracle said,
“know thyself”.
and then
she prophesied
that proverbial
end of relationship.
what she couldn’t see
is that the end
of that relationship
was the one
i had
with myself.

I did not think that
at 32
I would be sitting in my backyard
at dusk
crying over a broken sapling
but I’ve tried
to grow
so much
over the years
and little survives.
There is something of a lost child in it
and maybe it’s remembering that
causes tears. 

Time repetitive
variation carrier
oscillation state

Sine wave synthesis
blood-brain barrier passage
crystalline spectra

Modulating self
fundamental frequency
harmonic structure

They always look content
in their broad-shouldered
bovine way, chewing,
gazing benignly around
with glazed vacant eyes.

What can they imagine
of what lies ahead
bred as they are for milk
and beef?

We know they’re aware
of their lives.  On hot days,
they move into puddles of shade.
A heifer moans and wails
when her calf is dragged away.
Herded into trucks on the way
to slaughter houses, bleats
and wild eyes emerge between
the slats.

And what do we understand
about our human lives and what
lies behind it and ahead of us?
Are we too bred for sustenance
for a higher form of life?
Is our own mortal energy
food for the Gods?

My scars
are a blanket of thorns
sewn inward.

If you take the time
to find the same joy
and comfort that I’ve found
when under this burden,
then I will know
that you are a true friend.

Susana calls me on Tuesday

She asks me: “How are you?”
I tell her, “As good
as I can be for a Tuesday.”

I ask her,”How are you?”
She says, “Not so good
for a Tuesday.”

Her answer gives me pause.
“Tell me what is not good
with you then.”

“Do you have any influence?”
“Depends,” I say and ask,
“Are you in jail?”

“My brother is in his truck,
stuck in Nicaragua.”
She says, “Donnie has a friend…”

“In Nicaragua?” I ask?
“Yes, he knows the President.
President says he can’t do anything.”

Immediately, I am back in Nicaragua.
Daniel Ortega, a Marxist-Leninist,
is the Commander of the Sandinistas.

I remember how he could do
everything as Bianca Jagger knows,
and now she thinks the President

has told the military to kill
them all–
all protesters.

College students
and the Church, want him
to give up his office; hold elections he would lose.

The young believe he has given up 
Sandinista for Orteganista,
his dictatorship, his wife as his Vice President.

Susana says, “The protesters have stopped
6,000 truckers across Nicaragua,
and my brother is only 67 kilometers

away from the Costa Rica border.
I remember the 1980’s and 1990’s.
I remember the Contras.

When the rebels made gains in a dry spring,
the U. S. and Great Britain invaded Granada
to quell Cuban, Russian gains there.

Granada asked for help.
Castro said, “I don’t have the money
to take on the U. S. military at this time.”

So times have changed. but politics
are still Ortega, known to lie and seek new
alliances when they serve him better.

Ortega counts, among his friends,
the Russians, the Iranians, and
the Chinese who promise

to build a canal through the best land,
that the government will take through
the power of imminent domain,

land that will belong to Ortega
when the Chinese promise fails, 
but the land remains.

The troops, offered by the U. S.
to help restore order,
and get the sides to talk peace,

are stopped at the border
in Costa Rica.
I have to tell Susana,

“I will not fly in there,
for all my friends are dead
or have left the jungle,

except for one,
and he is
living in Texas.

I tell her to tell her brother
he should find a young woman
to help him.

On Wednesday,
I call Susana.
She tells me,

“He found a woman,”
and I breathe a sigh
of relief.

haughty blood tulip
fresh blossom opulence
butterfly tempest

find the bad whisky, cupcakes and a plastic cup
ride an achingly selfish orgasm with Sophia Loren in 1960
trip blind drunk in the dark into a rusty metal post and barbed wire fence

the renunciation of flesh coverings 
and birth of blood stains
I was born full of salt 
full of ebb and flow
but now I gotta keep the moon in my pocket 
to make sure I shed on time

Show of hands if

each morning you check

the news to be sure

the world did not fall

apart while you were

sleeping

I’m afraid, child, it already has. 
Hands down.