If I held you to a flame
and let your painted face melt, clothing char off,
would you gaze through blind sockets,
same as you once were?
To do this is pointless because I know
that if I burn you
nothing will remain;
just as it was
when you were whole.
Two fields over from the great oak once
You would find black cattle grazing. Bet
Cows were on that patch a hundred years.
But no more. Farmer’s son signed a deed.
House plans tucked under his arm, bride
Not far behind, he walked north and south
Then east and west, moved the manger,
It had almost grown roots, marked fence row.
Two chains here, three chains that way,
Intense and excited with the prospects.
She thought of rooms for two kids,
A basement for canned goods and rainy play.
Deep front yard, big enough for sheep,
But for now tree planting priority one.
Lawn so big, he had to buy a tractor to
Mow. Look up at it as you drive by.
Big trees, bluegrass green, strong fences,
And at the top, a deep red house seems
To have snuggled in where once the manger
Fed cattle and hay was baled twice a year.
For thirty five, almost thirty six years on the
Crest of that rise, the son grew his family,
Farmed his land, built a business never thinking
Life would turn and he would pack and leave.
Death does that to a family. Dad gone, heart
Falters, hip joints do a number and time comes
To move to town, even though he swore not.
Does no good to swear, life deals stern hands.
Winning takes looking ahead, deuces wild.
oooh
y’all
it
feels
so smooth
to be
me
inside
that moment
just
a breath
a lift
a fuzzy green
world
leaving
my fingertips
a tilt
a pillar
of muscle
doin’
what it does
a snap
and contact
that’s all
i got
to do
to get
this thing
goin’
that’s how
i flex
the only
wind
i’ve
ever
been
one day cameth forth a summer storn
dark clouds didth light nings a door’n
thunder pierced the evilling skigh
doom didth seemeth to be near bigh
(while my “O”‘n spell-in beeath not graight
’tis not my fault t’ain’t awl straight
when the storn with evil beeganne
she knockedth my m cleer douwn to n)
For Queen
Let’s climb a lake of moon
stepping on rungs of luster
opaque light fading beyond.
I know we cannot disturb
the universe with its grace
of oblivion inevitable, its
garments of time stripped bare
into this one sweet moment
but eternity is in this fingertip
stirring my love’s fluvial core.
Who wants to live forever
when today holds an eon
the only sweet champagne
we are designated to drink.
At a boat dock restaurant
My party has not arrived when I
get to the restaurant, floating, not
visibly moving on water; the morning is a still pride
begin to a day, unlike yesterday’s rain.
I pass three women, silent as the pain
in a funeral parlor, sitting at an outside
table. I enter the restaurant. It is empty, not
that it bothers me in the least. I
am early, I repeat to my silent self. The tallest of the three
ladies follows me inside. “Do you want to see
a menu?” I say, “I’m with the birthday party.”
She says, “I expect they will be
here about nine.” “I’m fine,”
I say, aware of our rhymes , four
chairs against the clean wall
beckon me. The tall woman goes out.
The youngest waitress enters; goes about
her business of filling all
the holes in the buffet bar before
she speaks, “I’m happy you came to dine.”
“Glad I could make it,” I say;
ask, “How are you?” She says, “Good.”
I say, “I like good people. Can you
teach me to be good, too?”
She looks at me as though
she has forgotten the line of poetry
she intended to write.
She gives me a second inquiring look and says,
“I guess there are things in all
of us that keep us from being good.
I don’t think I have to teach you them,”
she says. “I’m not good,” I agree
with her as she goes back into the kitchen.
I do not see her again.
The tall woman and a short, plump waitress
pass me, on their way to the kitchen.
Three white ducks swim past on the green water.
The day started with vision pixelated and out of focus
while the names and words slipped from grasp
moment by moment and fading in mid-sentence
hour glass of incomprehension that still hides
the names and places of things I know.
The stroke took away my confidence
to know your name when I see you
then you became her
and then that was
gone.
Struggling
to find a voice again
to make sense of word tapestries
to recall the name of a friend who is in front of me that leads
to more apologies that at the end of the day I can only say
hold me.
“…sometimes it’s necessary to see a [person] bleeding after having been punched to feel some kind of impact.”
–Melania Geymonat
1
they just wanted
to ride the bus
home.
but they wanted
to make it there
safely.
they wanted to
sit in their silence-
stew in their love-
savor their moment-
live unafraid.
all they wanted,
they wanted without
the jeers
and the taunts
and the blood on their face.
they just
wanted
a kiss.
2
we are not
your entertainment.
and we are not
your daily
hate crime.
the closet is
too small now.
keep your pissy
promenade
of arrows.
we will not
be afraid.
Sixteen corpses washed clean
as dusk slips to night. Tucked in
star-white burial sheets, the children’s
fingers make tiny half-fists
like new curls of wood.
Coffins lifted, then a slow
procession to the blackened rim
of the village. Now, 40 days of prayer.
Five brothers are wailing.
In the air, a mist.
After Garcia Lorca
