6/23
time speeds up
earth heats up
email piles up
can’t keep up
peace out
rain spills like a heavy hand of spices,
drenching darkened buildings in sheets
of soupy relief. down here the leaves
and the ground and the trees have no
choice but to drink it all up, swallow it
whole like a fly caught in a carnivorous trap.
there’s no such thing as overwatering
in summer, for even the well-watered tomato
sapling i inherited still looks peaked—
crooked leaves dangle as he arches
his herbaceous back towards eventide’s sun.
doesn’t he know acting needy won’t
bring him any more rain than the rest of us?
I think any progress is a wonderful thing,
but we should sometimes practice more caution.
Progress exposes new questions
we didn’t have the knowledge to ask before.
I think sometimes we forget
the speed at which the Internet
and then smartphones changed the world.
We’re still updating the guidebooks
even as new players are learning the game.
I think we fail the youth by not remembering
how severe a difficulty spike puberty can be.
Tutorials of T-ball and imaginary friends
suddenly thrust a kid into Level 100
with all these hormones and urges and
new sensations now aligning with
access to endless facts, nonfacts, and opinions;
all the things of the world
and sites they can visit.
I think we can do better at recognizing
that gender wars we know have gone on forever
are just beginning in the minds of the youth;
how nowadays, young men in particular–
having been a young man once myself–
are right-out-the-gate put on the defensive
without the promise of a good role model.
So it’s no wonder to me why they gravitate
to the most empowering of voices.
I think all of this is hard enough
even before you get to the households
where myriads of traumas
forever alter lives;
how a child’s capacity to take damage far outweighs
their capacity for comprehensive coping abilities.
And I think a much greater emphasis
could be put on an individual’s story,
that anecdotes shouldn’t be treated
as the same logical fallacy they always were
because if it can happen to one,
it can happen to another
or even a million.
I’m spinning plates
on trembling fingers,
balancing deadlines,
dreams, and disasters—
each one whispering
don’t drop me.
There’s no rhythm to this chaos,
only the panic of keeping pace.
I’ve become
a calendar in human form,
every square filled
with someone else’s need.
My mind splits—
fragments fighting
for top priority.
I blink and forget
where I am,
what I was doing,
who I’m supposed to be next.
I’m stretched so thin
you can see the panic
bleeding through.
Still…I smile,
because there’s no time
to fall apart.
Not when everything
would crash with me.
Keening cry or sorrowful sob
why so?
Threat drives toxic overconsumption;
toxic overconsumption feeds fear and anxiety;
fear and anxiety increase misinformation intake,
escalating threat perception
Constant threat:
perpetuates despair,
trouble sleeping,
undermines health,
nurtures mood swings
Cycling, Cycling, Cycling
Over and Over and Over again
And again
And again
And again
I heard a cry . . . my own?
Keening cry or sorrowful sob
why so?
how to need to break cycle cycle cycle
pause remember to
breathe . . .
not wise enough to know
what I can do to make difference
just do what I can do in
my little corner
and
remember
pause remember to
breathe . . .
Let the cool lake of your body rise out of itself—
the drip in your wrist become creek,
the sheet wrinkling steam
like a backroad after the summer rain.
Let your damp breath fog the window
at 3 a.m., the salt marsh of sweat
pool on your collarbone. Become
a county you cannot map.
Your body made faster and moving away—away
from the named things:
toward the unroofed night,
the crickets stitching heatsong.
And become the frisson waves of heat mirage—
that shimmer above the highway
where all shadow thins beautiful and black,
then vanishes. Become the static
between radio stations,
the buzz warp in the fluorescent light.
Let you become
a wildness slipped from its chain lead—
water finding a low point in the gully–
light bending around hillock and pavement–
up. And going.
My great-grandmother visited me the other night
I was upset
heartbroken
longing for days, I can no longer chase.
My fingers kept busy, folding clothes.
I could sense her
behind me
her perfume reeked: floral essence.
My tears continue sliding
silently
as my feet shuffle on—
to the other room.
I could feel her
beside me,
longing to hug me,
to comfort me.
I told her
“no, I’m fine” and “no, not right now”.
I wanted her to
go back and rest,
to move on without me.
She lingers
a little longer
—but eventually
she listens
and her spirit disappears.
Part I
The day so hot, I dove into a painting—
the first water scene I saw— a stormy sea
painted with Prussian blues, teals rolling
round, with turquoise tips, and the sky,
an Aegean blue mottled with dark clouds.
Two fisherman aboard a sailboat
of time-darkened white sails, holding tight
to lines, hoisted me aboard. Up close, I noticed
their hip boots and dark grey oilskins, and beneath,
navy woolen sweaters, all of a time long past.
I recognized the older man— the painter,
Russell Bauer, who once loved my grandmother.
Not startled by my presence, he growled,
How’s your dear Oma? Though rain and wind
whipped his face, I could see his tears.
He didn’t seem to mind, scowled and said,
Yes, lost love is forever my tempest. He took my hand—
begged me to leave, to take a message to her.
I found myself on the floor below the frame,
a coil of seaweed entangled in my toes. Echoes of
I still love rang all day in this tiny half bath.
An ekphrastic, from Sails on Stormy Seas by Russell Bauer.
1965. Acrylic on canvas. 18 x 24.
Careening into the Middle East
after Farnaz Fatemi
Self-satisfied peacock
Fanning out your feathers
Fordow Natanz Esfahan
How lightly you carried this dark plan
Through your gilded golf resort
Esfahan is the birthplace of Farnaz’ father Fall in love with its great square, minarets
Drink tea in the garden courtyard of the Abbasi Hotel In the shops
learn to bargain with humility and respect so both sides will feel satisfied
Blighted America of carrots and sticks, winners
and losers, bully opponents with bombs, tariffs
Defund dissenters, enlist the National Guard, bulldoze
the rose garden, make way for hundred foot flagpoles
The President’s gold
now the White House brand
It takes a protester from Tehran to say it:
There is no one dirtier than Trump.
Esfahan sits along the Zayandeh River where years ago, Farnaz is told,
her grandfather ministered to scores of stray cats with his tender Iranian heart
