Summertime Erasure
perennials pop
now in progress
succulents
enjoy summer outside.
hummingbirds, bees,
butterflies
a feeding frenzy
over herbs, birds
work on
the seeds.
sage, lavender,
rosemary, thyme.
don’t forget
pretty pansies.
perennials pop
now in progress
succulents
enjoy summer outside.
hummingbirds, bees,
butterflies
a feeding frenzy
over herbs, birds
work on
the seeds.
sage, lavender,
rosemary, thyme.
don’t forget
pretty pansies.
here the light is muted
aching of royalty
these new-ancient stones
and tiled floors
have buried old ghosts
the prayers of a millennia
dance slowly in the dust
a thousand amens ring out
in silence that is disturbed
only by the footfalls
of the passing pilgrims
who can only wonder
what stories these sacred walls hold
Ruin
to Regino Sainz de la Maza
Lost
and breathing out through a coral torso
way, this way the air went! Soon
I knew the moon
was a horse’s skull
and the air a dark, red apple
behind the leaded panes,
with whips and lights, I felt a fight
of arid sands with water, saw
leaves of grass tumble
in bales tossed to bleating lambs
lodged in their little teeth and lancets,
and the very first dove flew encased
in a dropshell
of featherbombs and plastic. Clouds herded,
a wind-chafed shepherdess,
falling asleep in the dark contemplated
the duel of rock hills with the dawn.
My boy! The grasses roll, come down to us,
salivating swords that sluice through
the thin sagging belly of the sky!
My hand, my love. The grasses!
By the broken glass inside the home
the bloody fists that undid your locks of hair
you and I, yes we alone
lay out your bones for the showing.
We two, just two, remain.
Prepare your bones.
Be quick for this, amor, be quick
and look to make our sleepless profile.
Author: Federico García Lorca
Translator: Manny Grimaldi
Fresh cut Timothy
Mahogany sawdust
Sea salt and sweet sweat
Horses, good dirt, sunshine on smooth pine
I Inhale deeply to take you with me.
Someone is threatening to bomb Krogers.
Oakley
Newport
Bellevuei
Erlanger
Cold Springs
North College Hill
Corryville.
No explosions, just employees
and shoppers standing
in parking lots until bomb squads
found nothing.
I saw the police cars
fire trucks, ambulances
at my Krogets. the Oakley one.
Why would anyone blow up
Krogers, where everyone buys
bread and peanut butter and pasta?
Because the greatest terror
id the fear of the ordinary.
dream two
every time i dream of you
you’re leaving.
in the chaos
of my sleeping mind
you’re ready to go
this time you’re in fatigues,
green and brown
like the earth and grass
you lay on before
you went to sleep.
you held a duffel bag
a black burden that looked
heavy as the smothering night.
i’m wearing a dress the color
of a white winter sky,
a blood red scarf
like a severed umbilical cord
tied about my neck
i do not understand
these troubling dreams.
you looked at me
round shouldered, fatigued
(the garment you wore?)
i don’t understand
the symbols in dreams.
was the bag you shouldered
the weight of your addiction?
i don’t get these things
scattered like detritus
in my dreams
i wanted to hold you
before you went away
a long, strong hug
around your neck,
but you slipped
out of my arms
and went away.
i woke up wondering
if i’ll ever make sense
of the senseless things
that happen in my dreams.
Mama grabbed the trinket from her little girl’s hand
dressed in bright fuschia, cornrow braids framing
her small brown face.
Stern dark eyes bore him down shouting, Not enough!
The child confused , watched his sandals sift through sand
slinking away full of chagrin.
One time I cracked my tooth
Eating Mingua at my desk
Holed up in a little office
Way out in God’s country
Forty miles from anywhere
Then I finished off the bag
Before I considred what I
Had just done to myself
And if that just ain’t the
Most Kentucky thing you
Ever heard, then I just
Don’t know what is
she likes Pad Thai followed with fermented honey and cranberries
would you like to dine with me in the cemetery?
subsequently asking if I liked realms of melancholy to which I responded with “very”
I like meeting someone whom only I can make merry
I asked if she would be in the next dream when I awake from this dream and if she’d come back as a fairy
and if you could also be a stranger again I’d dump more of my thoughts and have less to carry
she has a piano in her room but doesn’t play it and that’s contrary
I don’t categorize her and that makes her more interesting and less ordinary
