| Book One
Ellen Sander 1969-2001 |
I
blue demise
the complexion
of the resting corpse
like marble
or wound-deep ice.
death's pale shadow
peaceful on the flesh
our last earthly presentation:
an exquisite shade of blue
II
blue cool
sapphire fingered jewels
waved w/ smoky indication
in the bistro and
the kind of jazz that
imprints new
electric blue
circuit streams that
neon rainbow trout can swim in
III
blue day
started out knowing
that nothing will change
hanging on crumbs of hope
that blow away in the wind
scooped up by rollicking birds
my moody, broody
shredded resignation fades
to blue
IV
blue streak
whambam pop
techno tempest
torrents rip monsoon dunes
unbelieving cobalt pain
too fast to feel
V
deep blue
your eyes at low tide
the ocean is careening
dark skies moan
hermit crabs catch
scallops in winks
and probing glances
azure do love you
VI
blue flash
zoom
b-lew
VII
blueberries
nuzzle and nibble them in
suck and sneakslipping sweetness
tasty little knobs
turn me blue
rolling around
pressing between tongue and palate
rocking slightly
they tremble before
they burst
The stars shame us
with their multitudes & indifference.
I can see what I am not
in the amazing starlight
walking back to my room.
I do not sleep, I
float between
a vague & pristine presence, learning
the difference between awareness
& thought.
I could disappear
& not meet
myself in recognition any more
my body moving in some
unknowing & emblematic design
every shift redefining pleasure.
I watch the tabla
player
in awe of his shadow hands
that rake the air with
glancing strikes.
I am anointed with his sweat
& sacred incantation.
It is a dream dance, the flickering
rhythm's dangerous passage through
his core & extremities.
We meet our ancestors
in the rampant mystery
they love each other passionately
the stars envy us.
glass orchids give up
fragrant dew ruby island sunset almost lewd volcanoes remember
ice, a foregone assimilation
of faith birthing
pools in lava tubes beneath the floor in
chill innards vertigo below sea
level in some vast
underground gulf whose hidden
histories recall the aching shrug of human
infestation smelly maw mucous gullet the punishment for trespassing
is never again to sleep shed reptile skins
crackle underfoot volcanic ooze/sulphur
slime hiding between accidental vegetation
apologizing with
deformity and by being forever
out of season Morning trembles on the cry of a starling's
hunger Grey light slides up
over then down the rise who can hear the
still rustle of the newborn day's
robe (I am told it is
silver the finest fair
silver the moon can spin
forth) I hear it laughing
with the jackrabbits there on the nape of the
hill July 7, 1969 (for
Jay) don't hold back break like the day lightly softly completely in humblest awe of the gift of
beginning each day starts with letting the
night go letting the stars and
darkness slip to the other
side first light is a Zen
master perambulating teacher by appointment
blessing each morning and all that falls
into it you are part of this
perfection a serene treasure of unmitigating
constancy the veil of dawn
parts to blow a bride's
fragile kiss over the shadows'
surrender waves in and of the
infinite grass sways in the
wind vermillion birds pose
and hover you stir within me the canopy wafts the stars cry out. gate gate para gate para san gate bodhi swaha deeper in florentine shadows the only notion is
depth of being and
creation, breath and sensation transmute. ages exist not and the only motion is
breath, which like illusion floats
away Fire cooks, warms burns away coals fragile, perfect
ash-forms remain. Flames feed on flesh and breath rise, strain, arch, release, soar plumes reaching for the divine. Burn singe, sear, melt away that which keeps apart what gods have put to gather. This exquisite love suspended, like a
dream about to wake engulfing, like a
storm about to break. You hold me up as if
I were a reward for the strength of
your pain defying the regret of
roads and things to
look away from. None of that now. You lift me on to
you. I lift you in to me. We linger to savor to hesitate to rejoice to surrender to breathe to gaze two lovers. (for Arthur Okamura) Birds over a rice
field one two three impossible starlings each a plane apart. He makes thermals
occur on paper, I tell you like Marcel Marceau he has birds disappear which were never there in the first place. Sept 27, 1973 Ellen Sander July
1969 One day, after the baby was born she took him to the river set him floating in a basket toward the sea He grew up to be a savior died alone atop a mountain watching everyone else go free the thought of seeing
you worked its way
through my physique from the bottom up but it was just a passing question;
you'll call tomorrow & we'll see we have to make adjustments in quadrangles, there
are too many ways wanting one
another precludes reason. thanks, at least, for that we evade suspicion by hiding in obvious
places i require
nevertheless some dignity even in furtive
wantonness. if i catch just a drift of
cynicism the spell is broken emptiness doesn't
care about what i think i
deserve craving growing on
itself becomes its own creation, lithe &
sweaty a superb &
sweeping predator we call it from the
shadows by the simple act of
coupling, it could not feed
without us, this meteor whose tail
grows larger as it approaches the
sun devouring tidy worlds with its interloping
bodily arc it's hard to imagine
what could have occurred
to make all this right i keep turning it
over in my mind trying to fit everything
into some compassionate
ontology sometimes
i just hear your voice stroking the air
between us nothing said means
much beyond what could
never last & shouldn't have
begun, except here we are & now we can't
live without it Some
idiot flicks a cig Nothing
stops the surfers Winds
coast the southland A
spotted mare A
fugitive hiding in the wilderness The
sunset is bleeding The retaining wall gives out Down
the coast Watching his old
apartment retch ochre plumes, Viejo
wishes he'd saved something
to write on All the notebooks,
pictures, stacks grandchildren's
letters in one last heave of
cinders coil Decades of stories
play scatter in the air
with the bitten pencils and
pictures The books meet
Ophelia in her ashen hysteria Neruda in his charred
garden Ferlinghetti on his
toppled cliff ink stained knotted
fingers Dos Passos, tres
passos, finito Too late before they
started sirens teem; it's rush
hour and barrio calls go
last Scorched toast
kitchen walls crumble first, and
then the sense of having somewhere
to go The burning poem
reaches the sky twisting back to
look, it fights with the wind Shadow legs through windy skirts in smoke, all remains The composition of
breath ~ A reporter with a
microphone ~ The election is
important. ~ We don't know how we
got here. after we leave. ~ The mysteries
revealed but the yearning is
exquisite. ~ There are more
verified impostors It's a very popular
thing to do. Don't trust
everyone. Find ~ The best thing about
waking up sunshine and good
news. ~ Language ~ The yogis believe ~ (You and I create the
universe ~ all music: all art: all science: all intelligence: all love: ~ Safe in the billows of pillows and sheets now that we cannot move again, they stroke us with slight breezes white curtains blow, dancing in the windows flapping oceans laugh in waves extravagant happiness in your faraway humming I see my legs trembling on the beat of your sigh As you settle, I float finger knots untie slide down your silky bough my cheek follows the taste of last night is indelible, it becomes a spray of tiny dazzling jewels against a velvet ceiling
July 1973 Poets around here about as fragile as Sherman tanks oysters abound you'd think it'd be different. Oxygen and devotion greengrowing. Bolinas trees sing in the storm jam all night with the moon and the whistle buoy. I once paid a palmist just to have my hands touched. This ache it persisted and when it went away I cried at movies just to get a hit. Did I leave my shawl on the boat, singing boy? I thought I might come back and wake you find you maybe snuggled in with it. Jesus was a wood working Jew but you drive me crazy with longing I touch you I write; What if you saw me hungry like this? "I do not even live Spent, her body hums Fire engine red fuck me magenta shoes click clucking down
the alley Stop light red dress
babe has to blow half the vice squad just to
settle bail The lug in car 194
gets good marks for his huge red
horse the other girls know
all about it by one a.m. When the cherry red
door closes behind her one more time for the
night If he tells me one
more time that I have the
tastiest pudding in all of L.A. I am going to to ask
him “as compared to who?” But actually, I hope I can keep my trap
shut long enough to get
through breakfast He had a good time with anyone who would
hold still. He'd never call again just on to the next
one. He traveled faster
than bad news. In the end they all
thought it was a really bad trade: a long night of elaborate squealing
release for the displeasure
of remembering that she
knew him. He hit so many bases that one day he went around
complaining about his leaky
little thing and how it hurt. Anyone who'd listen he told his woes. Whichever hateful
bitch had afflicted him he hoped she'd get
pierced by a thousand
lightning strikes and then get hit by a
semi. But that was only
until it felt better and then he started again as if it were his
mission to spread the poor
luck of meeting him around
like the flu in December. He loved his Jenny
Lee so much that he went and
busted up MacSorely's Bar the night she went
off to college He took out the juke
box for the bands that
would play the alumni
amphitheater The pool table upended for the guy she'd
sneak into the dorm now that he'd taught
her to crave it Then, he felled the
Budweiser sign the condom machine in
the head the video poker and
then In a final
sacrificial blow MacSorely himself bowed to a two-ton
sucker punch Meant for the aging
professor that would find his
Jenny Lee had great potential Angie Bowie Deep Knee Bends In High Heels High Hells Tina Turner's Bruise Chita Rivera's Spider Kisses Wise Wounds On Fire ‘sex isn't everything Diane' he said ‘oh yes it is' she replied leaving the troubador
bar with a semi famous
musician looking at him i
couldn't believe her eyes love isn't blind it's
just naked and needy now
and then it must be the wine
or the panama red or the star city beat
pressuring through the swinging doors behind the bouncer with
bulbous arms gold chain and gleaming dome he is a eunich
guarding the rock & roll
harem he calls the well
heeled when their favorite
prey comes to water he passes the most
golden of bodies on to one another high cheeks long
curly hair hips jut just so eyes like rockets finery loves finery their prowling
caresses rustle in satins and
suede he saves the glitzy
rifraff for the rest like Diane (when it gets this
late no one goes home
hungry) he does not save one
for himself he loves only cocaine and knows a good seat is worth a hundred
dollars and a night of infamy In
the pale Peqonic morning one
boat only emerges from the mist toward
Shelter Island with
one man aboard around
the landing and crescent channel skimming
the shoreline slows
down looking, looking barely
stopping and motors
away through the silveresque A
spirit hovers over the bed guarding
my dream wating
for a near-waking moment to
slip in Aroused
by light and birdsong, I stir with
swollen lips, thirsty, full The
subtle warm air radiates
from inside the bedcovers meets
the straying April morning chill and
shimmers imperceptably across
the thin mask of ether I
am a silken pond inside bathed
by unremembered caress and kiss lillied
banks and trembling pulse responding
to some invisible reach I
do not move, I pretend still to sleep lest
it stop (April in 96, San Francisco and Points North) Technology doesn't seem
as important in San
Francisco but orange juice does Nothing else slashes
a thirst and sweet-jonesing not even kisses. At least not kisses
I've gotten lately. The afternoon sun
streaks down Valencia the way
it presumably does on those rare days
they have sun in San Francisco. A child bangs his
plate repeatedly behind me. I consider leaving because this is a
café stop that deserves to be
peaceful. However, I feel
peaceful and the spinach crepe is
wonderful so I stay. In
the morning, breakfast
in Bolinas with
my memories and friends. I
see Lorenzo Ferlinghetti with Tui and
we chat about the trees he helped my
son take down last winter they've both grown up
so well. Later, in Petaluma, Cynthia Palmer shows
me the excerpt from Diane Di Prima's uncut
biography that is about her. Cindy's power and
magic is gentle and Di Prima
paints her perfectly. We talk about kids and Timothy, who is
dying daily. Michael is trying to
finish his archives before he
expires: it helps him manage
his grief and allergies. Timothy's been
refusing food for a week now. The ride between
Bolinas and Petaluma by the backroads is
lush and stripes of spring wildflowers
smear a place of awe and
renewal payback for
weathering the rain and mud. I hope I don't get a
flat on Lucas Valley Road
again. Back in San Francisco my Brazilian dinner crackles on the
grill. There are so many places called Richmond Each with a bar that remembers at least one of our names In daytime wisteria presses against wire latticed glass A resting place for soot and expired moths At night, shadows slide down one fluorescent road Stark silhouettes grieve aloud loiter in the soft charade of meant to be or written in the stars But stars, no matter what they are called have no name and do not answer. From no source illusion or reprieve That which must be deserved leaves me out So, yes there is something to be said, after all for the passage of time wind and stinger lust end up as honey after a spiral journey toward the kingdom of heaven in a gleaming cell in a desert by the Arabian sea hive guardians with savage craving devour intruders
The drumming settles into silence, the
dance is over & the
pain returns once again to his hands.
Crater Island
Crater Lane
Break Like the Day
Bodhi
Tapas
Amaya
Birds Over a Rice Field
Moses
Quadrangles
Malibu Burning
out the car window
the freeway median smolders
rising sparks tremble
going home to the hills
they mount the spitting brine
at Zuma
oblivious to wisps of smoke
spiraling over the bluffs
fanning the embers
the hills burn again
seven miles up the coast
rabbits and coyote panic
along the firewall
gallops through the smoke
she breaks into a moist clearing
a firefighter grabs for her halter
she shies and bucks
catches her and
just before the animal control
volunteer gets there with the rope
he leaps upon her
and rides into the canyon
a car explodes on the ridge road
fiery branches twist thourgh the airblast
landing on a trailer below
a screaming father grabs the garden hose
bellowing his daughters' names
the blazing trailer rolls down the hill
miraculously ejecting two little girls
into their father's arms
a riderless horse runs by
most of her tail burned off
a thin covering of soot over
the papers, the lamp, the windowsill
the dustcloth gathers the lost houses
wildlife, fugitives, heroes
and the last of the charred white oak and sage
Updraft
You and I Create the Universe
is so amazingly complex.
Each time we respire
we modify the atmosphere.
stands in front of a woman
whose troubles have just become
a public concern.
The disease is important.
The dirty food chain is important.
Don't forget to breathe.
We don't know why we are here.
We don't know what happens
What are you going to do about that.
in a searching heart
seem hardly worth the struggle
Than there are real congressional
medal of honor recipients.
Honor can be counterfeited
along with love, sincerity and value.
their intention and trust that.
is that it happens.
After that there might be
a bouquet of arabica
berries and cream
maraschino hickeys
cinnamon raisin toast
with apple butter
lies between us
like a log in the rapids
creating glory in simple ritual
nourishing loneliness
establishing grounds. With
language, everything seems
a little smaller.
if you change your breath
you change your mind.
They count off inhales
exhales and holding.
It works, it really does:
awareness is altered.
Mindfullness lives in the
space between breaths
waiting for you.
it exists only in our perception
and we exist as synchronous beings
who experience each other
to corroborate one another's perception.)
tone and rhythm and chaos
color and shape and illusion
microcosm and speculation
idea and sensual pleasure
you and I and the universe.
Seven Times Touching
Windmill
Lucille
Gripping fingers sweat
press harder on her neck.
Your hand sweeps
the wind
through a black hole
escapes her heart
hemi semi demi quavers triple
time scatter flung
tremolos
cry
agony.
She screams into your fire.
Your body curls
beating around her.
She's sobbing:
until you hold me
until you touch me."
"We can ride this wave forever
our keen ache lingers starkly
excoriating
in the fading air."
even after you
set her gently down
and bow.
Venice, 1996
Scarlett
Pillow Talk
Stone
Step on this rock
that moves underfoot
Spite the street
(that is dancing)
Lashing bodies on
the oracle
Black Vinyl Mandala
The howl of the circle
it comes,
it rockS
He had a good time
Blackout
Angie Bowie
Starcity Lights
The Guardian
Points North
the plumped up hills
Untitled 86
from Big Sur
such effort to pollinate
thirsty scrub
why desert honey is so superb and
Bedouin eyes afire
with incandescent longing
flushed in spirit
sucking syrupy fingers
ribcaged drones bleeding nectar
copulate in flight
danger, pain and honey
the strains of birthing quiet into
distanced oceanic roar
here on the north coast
poppies lilt at passing buzzers
grisly breakers charge
splitting through rocky gray jaws
and sulphur steam rises from naked shoulders
in the tinted blur as day moistly slips
I hear a tiny sound
I don't need to turn around to know
the song angels sing to themselves
buttering toast at midnight
Upscale tides lap upscale shores, but sand
is sand.
tidal scrub brush islands'
soft dunes pucker
like mothers ache
calling lost children
folding worried grandchildren in fragile arms.
The wedding tent shelters
the unplanned Mass
and prayers: For soon return
For safe return
and then For any return.
Just let us see their smiles again, tears
would be fine as well;
some glimmering possibility that flesh and bone
can't just wither in a dim moment
and vanish like a thief.
The pulsing moan of traffic
moves constantly, but never goes away.
The ocean's intermittent
rudeness of debris bits
too-small pieces nibble too
slowly up the shore.
War-torn children grieve
abandoned as
hope for peace in the desert.
Nomads trudge and turn toward Mecca
knowing peace will never come,
hunger never ease, but hoping
God is satisfied
so it won't get any worse.
He explains the fact
that she can never finish a thought
out loud w/the fact that
he's a Sagittarius and that's just what
they do. Somehow
This doesn't go over well
and she starts screaming
This he will hear even if
he starts talking
but not really
He is listening to the sound of
his own capacitors frying
and she is listening to
endless scenarios of disappointment
while both of them wait
for someone better to come along
tears in Buddhist temple
things we say
when death leaves us speechless
i mind less
and less
these sudden omens
of insignificance
wonder has
forgotten me.
peace with futility
takes forever
enchanted by ferns and tides and
break of day, the authority of animals
and the passing scent of chances...
...for get it
i don't miss the rush of recognition so much
any more
most times it really is
quite enough to just remember
is this that falling dream again
where am I
what happened
what are you doing to me
opiated drums
inside moving
where echoes come from
I am the mask of pain
it says
with me you can do anything
when you tire
I awaken
we dread not a make a peep
if by our of hiccups we are found
we all die
in this crawl space
shoulders making tire tracks
in the pillows
by the bricks
Expectations
the doorbell rings
I whip off my glasses
not to bump my nose in
your embrace
I'm not ready for contact
today, it's too soon to talk
and too late to
make a difference.
I can talk, but not about what
I'm thinking.
Instead
conversational postcards:
(one) Those wild roses haunting
trees on Shelter Island
unaware the fence had come down
(two) Imitation clouds, lacy
jet trails rizzle the sky
inventing horizons
(three) sling!
nightcats city street
bouncing, dark glow eyes
trashcan lid goes
spin
ning
My sense of being
is frail, I remember
what I should have said
as if it matters
but I know there's no redemption
for exhibitionists with doubts
Shall these debts define me
all I owe for what by time my choices measure?
Your disappointment grows
in mounting expressions of
expectations. I'm clinging to
ambivalence like a life raft.
For Eitel, going home
Things were always in the cupboard upside down
as if reversing labels was far too much to mind
and order over time breaks down anyway
I have for you everything but this.
In every painting by the sea
brushstrokes bite across parted lips
the taste of salt, that tilt of head
the person by the ocean is the same
standing still in the constant motion.
That same stare and turn of affect
that same coat flicking in the wind
arms folded keeping the wrap
closed around the chest
a state of being so common
no one's ever named it.
Birds land and walk in circles
scratchy prints in the wet sand
spelling out words he couldn't ever say.
In some paintings there is a boat
as if to say there is always
some way to another
collection of sadness
better sorrows, different regrets.
The boat leaves at sunset
and we could be on it.
The wrappers in the kitchen
fall to the floor
rustle across the threshold
and come to rest in a corner.
A cup of coffee cold for weeks
waits for groggy footsteps
that will never come again
and laughter faded long ago.
The painting opens like a window over the sofa
and the boat sails away.
7/4/2001
reflecting pool
reflecting pool
reflecting pool
reflecting pool
airborne chenille dribble
down sizzling
on the beach everywhere
in the distance
neon rockets
neon rockets
air inside
exhales through fans
heat floats
kissing eyelids
wafts a way
nipples bud in the
breeze
reach for fingers,
buttons parted
i love how summers carry dreams
rain in the a. m.
mistish world in the after new
suckerholing twin puffs
water beckons
stretching 20 miles of coast
opaque blue taffy
buildings in a
reflecting pool
more truth in shimmer
than solid
Those who say only women bleed
don't consider tender battlefields
those rage-soaked soldiers of the
heart cowering under cover
Funny, how we reminisce.
The past is kind enough to bury
lines in the sand
dunes, berms, erect themselves
tidepools, not words, in gaping mouths.
A mind is a terrible thing to make up
and matters of blood and surrender
just abstractions of a noble and sensual politic
between torn sheets of newsprint and linen
where bedding the enemy
is reasonable accommodation
and sometimes it just feels so good.
I think of Cleopatra in Caesar's arms
gasping at thoughts of glistening coastal treasures
literature and armies, teachers and above all, art
how she must have grasped and urged with
warrior cries, sweetly pressed her lips on
the gates of history.
Never had the empire known a better night
We live their secret daily. We'd do it if we could.
No lie. When the clothes of revolution come off
we relish the nudity of monuments.
| O | O | 0 | ||
| I | what | Allen | ||
| miss | holy | as | ||
| u | foolishness | u | ||
| Allen | Allen | dare | ||
| and | must | I | ||
| dare | I | miss | ||
| do | dare | holy | ||
| what; | u | foolishness | ||
| I | do | what | ||
| must | as | must | ||
| as | I | I | ||
| holy | and | do | ||
| foolishness | miss | and | ||
| Yes | Yes | Yes | ||
A poor child from the projects
writes a letter asking for a towel
so she doesn't have to use her brothers'
already wet and cold.
Her mother cringes in shame
What she brings home is never enough.
I saw a shopkeeper beat a bum senseless
for stealing a bunch of bananas.
What does he care that I'll never go in there again?
He is angry. He can't make it alone.
What he brings home is never enough.
The homeless, despairing in the streets
and the homesick, dispairing in the condos
the sales in the malls depleting
credit card opulence and poverty of spirit
there is no way out until it's over.
What they bring home is never enough.
The urban hunger aches
for that scrap of tinsel or some sparkle
to illuminate the dread
of getting up in the morning; they are
gorged and bloated on eggnog and hams
full of seasonal adulterants
poison for profit, remedies for sale
antacids, tranquilizers, fat substitutes
substitutes for comfort, ease and good sense:
What they bring home is never enough.
The broken toys of mornings after
chase us through the season
through decades, they ridicule the
feast and famine of heart. The broken hearth
of season's greetings mock us;
we comply numbly, feigning gaiety
waiting on the food lines at the missions
What we bring home is never enough.
Python Shoals
The office floor creases like ice
beneath blades, her footsteps so smooth
float on sharp words.
The tiny coolness
eels
in the shallows.
After 11 years she finds
it's all true
he kept telling her she was imagining things
Sleek across dry grasses she strikes
and coils, prey screaming cut short
in deadly embrace around the sand-hare
Enter jacket
trying to catch up
coins shifting.
(from New York, Spring 97)
A fine crimson craze on your thigh
when we were done
we admired it, trying
to name the primal resonance
these small favors of the moon
spilling across three oceans
wrapped around flickering shadows
pretending to be us
between cherries in Central Park
you with your English accent, me letting
California slide away like good intentions
peak performances and punk
we talked about impressionists
with a lower case I
we can talk about art
as if we were captions
and I forgot to ask what they
call rice pudding in Dover
I never eat rice pudding in L.A.
or feel like I am on the edge of grandeur
trees, grey claws just last week
bloom like popcorn glissandos
cascading past carriage houses uptown
I still think about how I held you
in my open palm and later we walked the
Soho streets rocking on uneven pavement
feet straining to memorize what steps feel
like falling together.
The Red Star
This is such a strange life
watching rover turn Mars into a fire hydrant
sniffing around Yogi, Scoobi Doo and the other pet rocks
Fred Flintstone chortling behind the used car lot
looking up at that red rock in the night sky.
Oh, Timothy, there is something out there, a piece of mystery and piped up voices.
Down in the bacterial pan
life is jamming and we find amoeba feces and marvel
listen as the Christian radio stations
cry foul all week, for that alone it's probably worth it.
But when that rocket blasts a hole through the canopy in
its plunge toward the stars, it leaves behind
a cloud of 250,000 pounds of hydrochloric acid
which breaks down and eats the atmosphere for lunch.
Most people over 60 in Queensland have skin cancer from
Concordes and space ships and all those vapor trails
that leave me gasping in envy and awe.
Archimedes, look, we reach for the stars
The Veil Nebula near Cygnus
M-33 in Triangulum
Horsehead in Orion
M-31 in Andromeda
I found out early that I couldn't really make a difference
(even when I did)
but I seem to make a difference to people who really believe
they make a difference so I live for heroics as
a child who waves at fire engines and at the man powered
Hare Krishna float and spirit warriors with wings spread
dancing toward me in formation through naked singularities.
And I show my love like those distant ancient
stars that are long gone by the time you feel their light.
I should be one of those malcontents grumbling what one rocket
would do for the school system
(Except I'd be the one to add “properly aimed?”)
but they took me with them when they penetrated the stratosphere
with fiery arrows and impregnated it with
semi intelligent gadgets and made official
the ache to know are we really unique
are we really alone
and I passed it on to every child I ever talked to.
I go home where shooting stars over the Palomarin trailhead
brush by like fireflies hitting a windshield going 115 mph at night
and in the corner of the heavens, the red star
once a fiery jewel in the navel of a celestial bellydancer
rumbles under the multi million dollar tinkertoy, the glove of
humanity looking up and reaching out to find what
can be known by looking here and reaching in.
Roasted bell peppers
gleaming with oil
the pale yellow plate
in silent witness
like children taught to behave
but secretly giggling
smoked fish, fresh dill
glasses of chilled vodka
herring pickles and bread so rich it
touches back when lifted
it's been so long
it's so nice to be back
how did you find this place
who else have you been here with
garlic smoked shroom
arugula and watercress
tiny white trumpets in the bud vase
nod in the breeze of a passing waiter
(5 clouds of radioactive fire)
Shiva is blue
irradiated in explosive pride of fire
his veins reaching from the sea to his
serpent brain racked with desire
he rises from ocean of lust
with megatons of holiness.
The Ganges simmers with sweet
trembles of his ancient lingam
as it searches a deep home.
Holy seed creeps over mountains and ruins
on the wingtips of tsunami
Krishna holds back western winds with bare hands
clouds of horses rear in the stinging foam
their hooves are sharp; they glow.
Crackling vapor trails along the borders
fall among the children playing
like veils, like shrouds.
Delhi dancers follow cymbals and drums.
Hidden in dimples, their smiles:
dreams of Shiva with towering phallus
in ecstatic reverie
particulate canopies shimmering
in his tent, waiting
Road Sins
One false move on a rainslicked road
and we crumple fenders coming together.
Timing is everything and you appear out
of nowhere in a constant storm.
The noise was so loud I thought
it was someone else and looked around
to figure out where it was coming from.
Finally, it dawned on me.
Traffic is terrible, I called home
to say I'd be late but no one was there
which is not surprising
I live alone.
I need to get my identification
I know you think you know me but
really, you didn't signal and I never had
a chance.
There is insurance to take care of this
kind of thing but I haven't been paying my
premiums lately, you know, staying busy
is a good alternative to getting involved.
These papers, they pile up
like motorcars skidding along grids
of lines and lights, there's always a warning
if you pay attention.
stalks swell with tomorrows blooms
fat and ripe like lovesick mornings
for Joseph
The fog moved in so quickly
you said it looked like the rest of the world
disappeared around us.
The Magnolia was blooming, just
two or three blossoms in January.
Marvel though it is, you say that in
Mississippi
these are called Japanese Magnolias,
outlandish.
Of course. Unlike native blooms
that respect season.
Understanding is overrated.
But if the rest of the world
dissappeared, it would be
just fine to be here in the fog
and Japanese Magnolia
with you.
Card With Monet
inside Girl With Parasol
a birthday greeting
and Harriet writes
“this reminds me of the farm
do you know what it looks like today?”
“where do the years go” you wonder
i never think about it
i remember where i put each and
every one of them
summers of white peaches and sour cherries
winters of sleds on the hill
the orchard where no apples grew
the trees so old they shook their fists at the sky
one year older, you
played the piano and married a doctor
two beautiful daughters
you still write me cards
that fill me with family
I loved your parents so much
I touch their headstones and overflow
i could go home again
but home is here
it's so different, Harriet
i never imagined a life like this
and now here it is and
i just do it every day
there was a brook where i
found Buddha
before i knew who he was
by the time i came to literature
i could cite zen koans in
lispy childhood language
there is something to be said
for learning sadness young
when you're older everything is better
the opulent beauty on the farm
the screaming and hitting in the house
i miss neither
can't imagine what it looks like now
your organdy pink dress
with the layers and the ribbons
ice cream smiles
little curly hands that held mine
when we crossed the street by your house in Yonkers
These are the years of forgiveness
of dresses loose at the waist and
grey hairs that I color and you do not
What does the farm look like today
a rich and wispy recollection
resting in moments when we go mad
and don't know why
trees that may have fallen
in winters as exquisitely bleak as ever
our children talk to each other across distances
never dreamt in childhoods troubled night
3/10/99
Hawks loop over Highway 33
Trans-Neptunian* orbits
that spell your name
through gathering fog
chrome birds celebrate your
birthday
Flesh wraps casually around
bird eyes that see a
world in healing hilarious
postcards
from heaven
pictures spring
magically from
burning fingers
ancient man-of-war trees
and rustic lingerie, bare
feet on wooden dance floor
rumble to ageless music
* a trans-Neptunian orbit is one that loops through our solar system from without
Bacon and grits
fatty slabs of incoherence
washed down with black coffee
strong enough to stand a spoon in
just to face the day
traffic
and complaining people
meaningless paper
excuses that are going to cost him
the thought of her
comes stinging back
"every other word out of your mouth is a lie"
she said
he didn't know how to answer
houses tucked in green yawns
of urban canyons
blue dot flashbulb pools glint
parrots watch from telephone wires
she is awesome
powdery smooth torso
legs to start a war over
breasts with a swell unknown in nature
leaning over the windowsill
in the milky morning marine layer
after her transcendent meditation
her mouth still wet
the breeze smells like last night's music
jets buzz overhead
dragonflies land on bougainvillaea:
Pasteur's assymetrical perfection
day goes by
trickles down the canyon road
like a green popsicle melting
no wind, no cloud
morning light
noise of garbage trucks and birds
damp sheets on swollen skin
smell of someone else's breakfast
the rug is damp beneath my feet
I can't remember what I'm angry about
meaningful patterns in random flashes
there is no nurse no meals on wheels
the floor looks fine and I'm not hungry anyway
I forget the keys, the directions
where are the clothes that used to look good together
the mending and the combination lock
every day is an anniversary of
something I can't quite recollect
where is all the money?
I used to remember this garden
but it's been dead for decades
composted in has beens
in soft rusty voices:
"watch over my boys"
What used to be is not important
it takes up all my time
Houses and roads
faraway hills that beckon smokily
now someone else lives there
curtains and and seasons they're all gone now
and making them meaningful is dull torment
I live in a world where I can never be wrong
I'd never know if they put the door
in a different place each day
or served me something strange to drink
where do they all come from
the smudgy children peering into my eyes?
" I'm a virgin", she said shakily as he unbuttoned her blouse.
" Where?", he chuckled as he slipped the cream colored satin down her left arm.
She lifted her arm out of the sleeve and turned her soft inner elbow toward him. "Here."
He slid his hand down her shoulder. “Nice vein", he said, fingering the sweet flesh, nudging the supple blue rope. "A beauty. I'd pay money for a vein like that." He reached for the spike. "Don't look."
She lifted her eyes and watched his face.
Carefully, he stung her and then did himself in the ankle. "A virgin" he said as she floated into his arms." I want you to love me like a baby tonight."
" I never knew it could be like this", she said, taking the rest of her blouse down. It slid off the bed and settled into a blossom on the Chinese rug where it lay in a wisp of perfume for the rest of the night.