In pursuit of
an indescribable
quality, hipsters
search for vintage
as if past
holds spice
not easily found
in present.
Without pretending
to be ancient, still
obsessed with
their own youth,
they adorn firm wrists
with patina-dull watches
they will overwind
and deck taut throats
with cameos
as if those permanent
faces could mask
how their own
will soon droop
and vanish
into that same past
they revere
this is just to say
I read
your note
if you think
poetry excuses theft
you’re wrong
however
I am prepared
to drop the charges if
you’ll replace
the plums
into the lap.
hand on the gloss —
quick rubout of the spot
on the bass side. first note
a B fretted high on the first string.
always, the same note to begin —
all art a recovery
from first stroke. first stroke
always awkward, always the same.
settling the guitar into the lap —
angle its face up, music up
and out in ascent.
tough on the left wrist, though.
tough on the hands that have to work
the column of sound.
the wood’s too bright
to make this dark a song
this Sunday.
into the wood, settling
the guitar, the axe
on the leg. chop at it —
and a beer would taste good
if only convention kept me
from opening one this early.
and I would have to stand up
and I’ve just settled the guitar,
the axe, the music into place.
settling the guitar into place
for playing. chop wood, carry
a tune. woodshedding a new song.
settling into place.
you call yourself a poet
which means you arrange words
into patterns for fun or
profit as do the professional
crossword puzzlers among us. if you
call yourself a performance poet
it means that more people
than just you and your mom
like the sound of your voice when
you describe the patterns you have been arranging
for fun or profit which makes you much the same
as a crossword puzzler who goes on the radio
to speak of crosswords. if you call yourself
a page poet you do crossword puzzles
in the privacy of your own home. if you call
yourself a political poet you look for clues
in crossword puzzles and tell everyone
what you’ve found. if you call yourself
a love poet you get a tingle down under
whenever you figure out 16 across. if you
call yourself a slam poet you get a tingle
down under at the prospect of arithmetic
which makes you a sudoku puzzler. if you
don’t call yourself a poet at all and prefer to say
just that you write poems now and then you might be
a person who when bored or thoughtful
picks up a discarded puzzle on the train
and fills in the empty blanks left by the last puzzler
while staring out the window wondering
what’s a six letter word for fish eagle
when the second letter is S and the last is Y.
you don’t figure out it is OSPREY until you’ve left
the train and the puzzle behind and you spend
the rest of the day with a photorealistic image
of an osprey in your head all though every meeting
and dull lunch break.
see that?
now you are just another
person obsessed with a word and its meaning
and how it might carry you through tough times
and how it fits into a pattern
and while that sounds like it might make you
at last
a poet worthy of the claim
really you will still be a casual gamer
unless and until you become
the osprey
and forgo the debate in favor of
the hunt.
First, remembering
how cool her skin was under your fingers
when you first touched it,
though it did not stay that way…then,
hearing your mother’s angry heels
in the downstairs hallway as she starts in with,
“Are you up? What time
did you get in? Did your idiot friend
bring you home? I didn’t hear
his muffler this time — did he get it fixed?
Get down here or you’ll be late for school.
We’ll talk about this tonight.”
Still wrapped in last night,
you rouse yourself from the shining inside you
to consider the answers
you’d like to give her: no, it was not
your idiot friend did not bring you home.
He hasn’t fixed his muffler. You don’t know
what time you got home, but there’s no way
you’ll be late for school today,
and no,
you will not talk with her
about any of this
tonight.
Tags: poems, poetry, meditations, love-poems
We aren’t about to address the storm
if to speak will change our voices.
We’ll watch it tear our sacred groves
into splinters.
We’ll stand in front of it
as it lifts us into the rubble.
We’ll whisper as we cower
under the eaves hoping it will pass.
But to offer a word against it,
spell out our power and force it back?
No. Not that.
It’s not a good time. It’s not
what we were made for. We were built
to watch it kill us
and then blame someone
for not speaking. We were made
to be silent and let the storm
carry our voices away.
Steam above reactors:
what might be in there?
How false or honest are the possible answers?
Frankly, I don’t care.
I adore
this not being sure
because I can fill the vaccuum
with my own terror.
I’ve been looking for a place
to put it and keep it from pressing
on my recent joy and calm. It’s not directly
relevant at all; I don’t have to stress
that I’ll be on fire soon or turn up dripping
skin, tending a body rife with tumors.
Those clouds billow and abstract into threat —
not my threat, though. These rumors
are just art to be savored. The reactors
are my gallery, my museum of doubt.
I sit a long time before the news.
When’s the end coming? I try to work that out.
Someone’s going to burn soon.
It won’t be me. I can watch it and be glad
even as I sob and gasp at the thought
of lives ending, lives I never had.
| It seems to happen often that I receive a phone call to request music for a friend’s funeral. This is my role in my circle, my holy manacle, When it happens I run through a list in my head the time before that, it was Des’ree, Sweet Honey in the Rock, ZapMama; Sometimes I reach for the guitar, thinking that maybe this time imagining that all at once I will know When I go, don’t make anyone choose songs for my funeral. Set them in a tambourine, take turns pounding it, set me rattling against that skin. |
I would make a good President
because I would have to be dragged
kicking and screaming to the job
because I am relatively free of the mental defect
that would make me think I could do the job
and that makes me more qualified
than those who usually try and do it
I would make a good President
of these Disunited States
because of all the hot bones in my closet
I’ve been everything at one point or another
and everyone could find in me something to hate
or use to declare me unfit for the office
I would make a good President
because my father’s an Apache right off the rez
and my mother’s an Italian immigrant
(don’t worry, she got here legally —
not so sure about my dad)
I’ve got the whole American Dream covered
in one package, baby —
was here, came here
colonized, colonizer
I’d make a good President
because I have inhaled
snorted popped booted swallowed
all the good national drugs —
money fame and casual cruelty
to my fellow Americans
and while I’m on the wagon now
I still know my way around
a finger flipped in traffic
whether domestic or foreign
(I know my enemies can change
on a dime into allies and back again
from years of merging onto freeways)
I’d make a great President
because I’ve got the allegedly necessary genitalia
for the job
I don’t look biracial
so I can be slotted without too much fuss
and I know how to wink and nudge
and slap a back when a back needs slapping
I’m not running
if nominated will not run
if elected will not serve
but boy howdy I’d be good at it
and man oh man you’ll be kicking yourself
next time the vote comes around
that I wasn’t in the race
in fact
I’m thinking of changing my name
to
None Of The Above
just to test the waters
Start with a Tunisian fruit vendor
who sets himself on fire. Add
an entire region which subsequently demands
that he shall not have burned for nothing.
Multiply by the shifting
of tectonic plates, factor in
water, water everywhere, some of it
carrying fire deep into Japan.
Determine
your valuation of the variable stories
of body counts, scenarios,
what the army wants, what the reactors
will do, what (if anything)
has actually happened
in these places you’ve never seen —
then,
subtract your attention.
Get up.
Go to the sink. Pour yourself
a plastic glass of water. Get
a snack of winter grapes
from the fridge. Sit back down
on the sofa
and turn the TV off,
sip the water,
eat the grapes
one at a time.
Show your work. Struggle
to swallow. Remind yourself
you survived a bad winter
and you’re working again.
Damn the oil companies
and the nuclear industry.
Resolve to call your representative,
to send money
to Egypt.
After an hour,
turn the TV back on.
Find a way
to take your mind off things.
Tags: poems, poetry, current-events
Red comes first, heat
among the rods and cones.
Then black, to hide
the humanity of the Other.
Yellow’s the final hue,
the cry of the flash as it
comes home. We’ve got
red stripes, black ops,
yellow ribbons —
why does it feel like
we’re out of order?
Blue, blue water,
drenching fire; white, the
blank peace after. Much
of the flag remaining
unused. What do we see
when it waves? We’re
the big bull. Movement
and charge.
I sit with my hand on my eyes.
Press hard on the sockets, bring up
red, call up black;
no yellow, no blue, no white.
Not now. Only
the blind palette of hatred.
Only the colors of not feeling
the result. It’s
exactly enough, like
a damned orgasm.
Clown says,
“C’mon, it’s all copasetic.”
Says,
“If you dare claim you are afraid of me
you can kiss my bagged-out ass.
Both our hearts are costumed;
my pulse is as naked underneath
as yours.”
Clown,
dress-up id,
says,
“Let’s get in that car with
my bosom friends. I’m
looking forward
to getting to know you.”
Open your eyes once inside.
You’re not laughing,
exactly; there’s not enough
room for that. But
you’re not crying exactly,
either.
All these shoes,
for one thing,
seem to have
improved your mood.
Clown says,
“This is called
getting over it,”
and you honk
your surprised assent.
King Phillip had a quirk:
he didn’t think much of
the bloody English. Out of
their concern for him,
the bloody English cut off his head
and put it on a stick so they
could peer into it from below
and see what was what.
Sitting Bull had one too,
a quirk that made him unhappy
about being kept in a tent. He wanted
to get out and dance.
Deeply worried about such longings,
his captors shot him down
to save him from himself.
Geronimo, that old smush-faced killer,
fell off the horse drunk and died
of his own accord while living
far from home — but that
was his quirk, that alcohol;
no one else to blame for that.
I’m sorry that the only tongue I have
with which to speak of these things
is English; I find it hard to count that single word
of Spanish as a saving grace.
Call it my quirk: I walk around all day
with a little head of rage
because you probably wouldn’t get this
if instead I’d been honest
and spoken of Metacomet, Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake,
and Gothalay. Call it my quirk
that even now, I’m not certain that you will.
Don’t kill me
for feeling a little angry about that.
Sometimes I plods. Sometimes I stops.
I’m a piece of gods. I’m walking. I’m drops.
I lose a little ground again.
Fall, impounded, anywhen.
See the bloods? Mine, I thinks.
A stone that floats until I sinks.
I’m not that mad, just split kaboodle
without a kit. My bad; I’m doodle
on a napkin all greases and stain.
It’s where I wrap a little brain.
Sharp, isn’t it? I scissor though
and maybe shed a scrap down low.
Bursty me, shell of once upon.
I’m never dim enough to not be on.
Sometimes I plods and then I stops.
Enough this train of sticky plops;
let me be, you big reply.
I’ll smile and weave a bit of die.
Want to become an animal
but don’t want to spend a lot of money
Want to armor my back and thighs
like a dragon might be so armored
but do it on a budget
and not permanently
Want to sing in the morning
and charm somebody’s pants right off
like some warbler or finch (I can’t name birds
on sight but I like the sound of those names)
but I can’t afford the singing lessons
and I’m not made for flight
Instead of being a man
who has to take everything so seriously
ravenous yet considerate of all consequences
to the seventh generation
careful of feelings today
Want instead to be an animal
but gently, as if
animal were a costume
to be put on and off
Release my familiar
to the end of its leash
and no farther
Being a man is so antique
