I am gonna call you
what I wanna call you
no matter what you wanna
call yourself
names are mine to choose
and you can’t take them back
or coin your own
so
my blacksnake
snickerdoodle
little cabbage
friend
simmer down
and feel what
a proprietor’s tongue
can do
Tags: poems, poetry, meditations
doubt
remarks upon itself
endlessly
repeating
increasing the volume
four decibels at a time
at a pace of once per day
until it is not a sound
but a body within
pushing on lungs
from a foothold on your kidneys
voting against
your drumkit and banshee business
of getting by
how will I get by
your monster noise
spurns that worry
even as fear
paralyzes your jaws
as if there were
bitewings in there
that now hold an image
of your cavity
how am I going to eat
there were those
who warned you it would be like this
rock and roll leftover
spitter of your own meat
a bit of tacky danger
a lie
how will I live
a distortion pedal
makes a lovely church
out of your empty bones
chorus is for those
who cannot bear to be alone
and it’s the crush of the sticks
and the dog yelp of the drums
that carry the loneliness off
how can I not be anywhere at all except when I’m on stage
not telling
but
there’s honor in the bigness of your attempt
o huge rejection rejected
o mastery of the returned stone
in the rat’s nest of the van
after the one night stand
rest assured
no matter what fails
the last voice you hear
will still be the one you own
Tags: poems, poetry, meditations, music
I begin with finding something so attractive
(not by definition beautiful or lovely
but something that compels me to look
without filter or judgment)
I at once believe I am in the presence
of a being or visitation or revelation
from a dimension
we all think exists but until now
have been unable to verify,
and here before me is the proof.
I study it, fall before it,
reach out in vain to touch it
before light or wind or time change it
(or my view of it more likely,
as something this potent
must be infinite, immortal,
immutable) and I am unable
to spend any more of myself
upon it.
I carry it in my head
and rush to find
some place to write,
then damage it
beyond repair while telling
of its perfection.
I try to rebuild it.
I slap words around, cut myself
to improve my ink, lose sleep
over paste and staples and stitches,
and generally make a huge mess
of the story of how
all my time
made sense at last
in the viewing of this
that suspended my cynical breath
and stopped my constant flight away
from hope,
then eventually abandon it to the eyes
and ears of others, hoping
that some day some stranger
may approach me and say,
“Yes!” and that the pulp of time
will stop pulsing again, and that
I may know again
that what I said I saw that day
was indeed what was there.
In this house,
above all houses,
there is order.
There is order
in the hamper.
There is order
in the drain trap
and at the bottom
of the garbage disposal.
The compost heap
decays in step
with a timer.
Even in the bowls
of chaotic potpourri,
there’s order.
This is no place
you’d expect to find a junk drawer,
yet there it is: right where
it always is in every other house,
in the kitchen, top drawer
below the most-used cabinets
and close to the most-used door.
This
is Martha Stewart’s junk drawer.
In the drawer, of course,
there are old screwdrivers, twist ties,
and an expired coupon for microwave popcorn
— those, in fact, come with every junk drawer
straight from the manufacturer —
but they do not rest alone
in Martha Stewart’s junk drawer,
because it’s deep.
Really, really deep.
In Martha Stewart’s junk drawer
there’s a red 1982 Ford Fiesta
with one black fender
and a donut on the driver’s front wheel.
Fifteen baby shoes.
A bootleg copy of “The Rocketeer.”
A tea-stained ticket stub
for a show in Branson, Missouri.
A purple thong, size 18.
A blue hat made from a plastic bag.
A fibrous growth from a boar’s kidney.
A jammed .45 with a broken grip.
Hollow points loose in the bottom,
and a rust-caked cleaver.
A map to the stars’ homes.
A small address book
bound in bonded leather,
blank except for the letter “K”
written on the page for “J”
in orange crayon.
A broken rib she calls “Daddy.”
One old rose.
In the darkest corner,
something squirming
the approximate size of a human fist,
squeaking “I’m a good thing!
I’m a good thing!”
You touch it and
the wardrobe in the bedroom
begins to shake, the flowers
to tremble. Martha’s far away,
but somehow,
her stomach knows the danger
and she sits for a moment
in fear, twisting a paintbrush
in her aching hands.
When you shut the drawer,
everything falls back to sleep:
the house in perfect order,
the forks aligned in their trays,
the tissues in Martha’s body
nestling back into place,
just so;
while in Martha Stewart’s junk drawer
the lovely chaos resumes its churning
as the house dreams
of its brief sojourn
as a home.
the fall
from a rose petal
to brown soil
is long
if you’re small
but if you carry
no weight
you walk away
Jimi Hendrix
had huge hands,
his vast natural reach
explaining his gift.
Andres Segovia, though,
was a genius.
Michael Jordan,
some kind of freak, some animal
bent from birth for basketball, was laden
with natural talent.
Larry Bird, though,
was a genius.
They say that Robert Johnson
was a bad player, disappeared
for a while, came back
astonishing. They said back then
he must have sold
his soul to a devil
who gave him his music.
They still say that.
They said the same thing
about Nicolo Paganini, in his day.
No one ever says that now.
But they do say that someone
built the Great Pyramid
for the Egyptians.
Someone
from Sirius gave the calendar
to the Aztecs.
Someone
in a flying saucer
drew the Nazca lines for the ignorant Indians
down in poor old Peru.
Stonehenge, though,
that ring of stone
to mark the passage of the year —
now, that was a work of pure genius,
with the emphasis usually
placed most definitely
on
“pure.”
Meet the New Colossus.
It’s coming to suck your marrow,
kill your livelihood,
wreck something you built,
and probably wants your women too;
builds its nests in woods
and swamps and hollows
where you were planning to build
a condo development;
shows up in your headlights
when you’re trying to get somewhere
and leaves its thick hair all over the place.
According to legend
it has either been here since before
the first white settlers,
is a recent entrant
from across the border,
or was dropped from on high
like a curse from aliens;
the only thing you know for sure
is that you’re terrified
and you need a name for what scares you
so you’ll watch some television show
and some authoritative voice
will offer you an explanation
so you’ll seize on that
until a scarier one comes along.
I was always told,
“Pick your battles,”
but that was one piece of advice
I was not able
to follow. No,
my battle picked me
when I was young
and tattooed a new name,
“Casus Belli,”
on my sword shoulder.
Threw its own
meaty slug of an arm
over me, pointed me
at a corner, said,
“Stand there.
Let them come to you,
don’t be more afraid
than them, and turn loose
everything I’ve taught you,
every time.”
Now, after all these years,
I’m a pretty hyena laughing
as I gnaw you down. I’m ready
to admit the transitory fun
I have…but know I didn’t
choose this role,
I’ve just made the most
of a bad moment
that never
seems to end.
Let me promise you
that I’m truly ashamed
of how good it feels
to let the sharp edge
swing. In all my dreams I see
a vulture singing
for me, a carrion fly
in my ear…and I know
what meal they’re waiting
to enjoy, so know I am no happy-go-lucky
warrior. I just can’t escape
my first kill, who
has never left me.
He wants your arm
for his arm. He wants
to see me fall
the way he fell, and pushes
on my back every time
I see the apparently easy mark
of my next attack.
When I come for you,
remember this. Release me from it
if you can. I long for it,
or rather he does, and somewhere
the first battle that picked me
is sleeping soundly,
secure in the wisdom
of what happens when
that name is given to a scared young man
and he is handed a weapon
he will soon learn to love
more than he could ever
love himself. I doubt he stirs
much in his sleep. I bet
he couldn’t tell me my real name.
Tags: poems, poetry, meditations
An early purple
to the sky, and
I’m waiting for someone.
Trying hard,
but there’s nothing to say to anyone
but her, so I’m waiting.
Take another shower,
drink another glass of tea, and still
the waiting.
Rhyme escapes me, reason
seems paltry,
and I’m waiting.
Night’s coming on,
it’s finally cooler,
I may be sleeping soundly tonight
because of that,
but I’m waiting.
This day
goes long
even as it’s ending.
All this waiting, like
the cat at the door pretending to sleep
but keeping one eye almost open;
I laugh at how he gets up
so quickly when the latch turns.
I think he laughs at me too
when that happens.
Like water
that becomes a rope
or snake
when you close your hand around
the stream pouring from the end
of a running hose;
like air that furs itself
and shoves its nose
into your palm
when you hold your hand
upright out of the window
of a moving car;
like grass biting
your legs and arms
as you roll upon it,
leaving you stung and itching
for hours —
some things,
once invisible or seemingly
innocuous, come to life
and push back upon you
when you surrender your usual
inattention
and bring them close.
When you let them live,
they live — not entirely
like pets, not entirely
wild:
reminders of how once
we all danced in anticipation
before barely tamed fires
and expected the entire cosmos
to present itself
and begin speaking.
Under the sounds
of the electric fan
and the traffic, the television
and the click of this keyboard,
there is a voice smooth as cedar flute
expertly played,
simple and utterly present
in this room full of noise;
I could turn off everything
and listen more closely,
but I know
there is no song
except that drawn
from out of chaos.
Feeling a strong motion
all of a sudden.
Is it the earth or the body moving?
If it is the earth,
stand still and observe.
If it is the body,
stay alert.
The elephant and turtle,
so long and so often cited
as the carriers of the earth,
are known for slow wisdom.
If the body is moving,
do not disrespect their stasis.
If the earth is moving,
take the ride.
And of the possibility
that both the earth and the body
are moving, perhaps in the same direction,
perhaps at cross purposes,
nothing more need be said except
watch, listen,
and choose the path
to be followed.
What loves me
I call American.
What hates me
I call out as not that.
What I love
becomes American.
What I hate
stumbled over the border.
~~~~~~~
Who is that new American
in the window looking in?
Shall I hate or love him?
Shall he remain my countryman?
~~~~~~~
I am the American
in the window, shopping
for belonging.
I fear it is out of stock.
~~~~~~~
To hell with that word,
“American.”
New, confusing word.
I came here
before they made that word
for here. It matters not
what I’m called,
and I don’t hate you for insisting
that I should care,
for all that I’m sure you’re wrong.
Before I was American,
I was mountain.
I was early light on the mountain.
I was dawn in my own house
illuminating my own walls.
American
describes a wall I can’t light.
I know this buzzing —
a city inside me of a hundred thousand
at least,
commerce, trade in waste and fuel
and emotion,
you call it chemistry
but I know it is more.
I am the census taker
aware of its dark neighborhoods,
its dangerous wastelands on the fringes,
the empty warehouses of the port district,
long streets with sad vapor lights humming
and only the odd car passing;
the living spaces for the unknown people
inside me, with some of their dwellings dark
and others lit as they sit for hours talking
into the night, perhaps
with their heads in their hands
and little to say to each other
as hard as they try;
some buildings shabby and empty
for the most part with squatters hiding
in the devastated rooms left behind
when purpose abandoned them
to the salvagers who make do;
then in the downtown grid of the chest
there are the revelers who make chaos of order,
spilling from bar to bar, loud, happy,
some desperate and longing for contact
with an immoral gleam in a longing eye;
and now across the freeways in my arms
to the fingers
that spew energy as refugees flee
wishing they were somewhere else,
inside someone else
as this city I am is no place for them.
I am left to house
the least desirable, the flight outward
allowing me only the discomfort
of knowing who will be left behind —
the leftovers, the citizens too weak
to leave me and those who prey upon them.
I sit with my own head in my hands,
the city buzzing inside me,
a song of bees gone wild, stinging me tired
from holding this all together,
this city of monuments
and painful trials, a metropolis
behind my eyes,
failed capital
of a failing state.
Tags: poems, poetry, meditations
A graduate sits,
thinking
of the old school.
Fireworks across the highway
from his couch
bang the night apart.
Back in the day
he loved the fireworks
after games,
loved the way
it smelled when the last squib
had ignited
and everyone walked home after
talking and flirting and
laughing. Smelled
like a little bit
of hell
was in the air
and back then,
he liked that. Now
he sits on the couch
swapping stories
over the Internet
with former hellboys.
Now and then a burst
from the campus
will give him pause
but he’s old enough to know
close up, the noise
would kill his listening
for the subtleties he prefers now:
a well-turned play, a pass carved in the air
like a swallow’s path.
As for what accompanied
the old school games,
the dark talk on warm nights,
in that he has little interest.
Give him a chance to see again
the way the game can be
an art, a painting of effort
in mere atmosphere,
and he might get up from the couch
and walk down the road to watch
the fireworks, but only after
the last play has been made.
