Held it in my arms
as it decayed
to charcoal, as pieces of it
scaled off and crumbled
and fell at my feet.
This is of course
why I picked it up
in the first place:
I only hold tight to my chest
what will fail me
most visibly.
I love the sound
that rises from the ground
when I tread upon it
as I walk away,
and the stains on my arms
that offer evidence
of my martyrdom.
When the last word
of English is spoken,
when it finally dies
and is forgotten,
everything we know
will disappear into the forest
where the ghost languages
recall their recounting
of feasts, lovers, wars
and memory, descriptions
of mountains and oceans,
specific words for snow,
sand, arrow, child,
mother, warrior, wine, bread,
chill, dawn, night, embrace,
holy, evil, baker, poet, song.
It will not matter. Someone from the next
dominant species will begin again,
trying to snare fact in the wind.
It’s always been thus: one voice fails
but the world itself remains to stimulate
the next voice to falter, gain strength,
describe the truth before it. The silence
breaks and then washes back into place.
Watching the salted
water rolling softly
in a shiny pot, I realize
my Nonni
wouldn’t know me now:
no olive oil in the house,
putting butter on the pasta
when it’s done…shaking cheese
out of a can onto the sticky pile
in the bowl.
This is hunger, I’d tell her
if she was here: I’m just hungry.
She’d frown, her lips turned down
the same way her hands curved and curled
over the wooden stick she used
to roll the fresh dough out for her spaghetti,
her quadretti, her wandi.
Always a white enamel pan
full of meat and sauce in the ancient fridge —
but she never called it sauce. It was always gravy.
She could lay out a meal, nothing fancy,
just good food that satisfied,
in no time. I’m fast too
when it’s time to eat,
but it’s not the same.
And I don’t know how
to make it so. So instead
I turn my back on her
and stuff the naked noodles into me
and try to fill myself. I’ll likely eat
the whole pan, fall asleep
early, and wake up still hungry.
In the morning I’ll stare
into the fridge and look for
gravy in a battered pan.
And I won’t cry. Not again.
Eros is an armed toddler,
only welcome when he comes as metaphor.
If he showed up on your street
you’d call the cops, or Children’s Services,
and you’d huddle behind the bed
while they took him in and stay there
until it was safe to walk upright
in your own home again.
The same goes
for Hermes or Poseidon: naked hunk
with winged heels and a helmet or a bearded guy
with a trident, fer Chrissakes. Who these days
would cheer their presence on the street?
Not one of us would heed a myth
if it showed on the hoof in a preferred form.
Maybe that’s always been true.
You hear about Zeus coming down
to make time as a bull or a swan,
visiting his victims in borrowed identities;
this is that whole “mysterious ways” thing,
isn’t it? We can’t be comfortable with
the full face of the divine.
We can apparently only take note of the gods
when they sneak up on us.
So who killed you, beloved?
Which one did this?
Who was it
who tore me up and left me here on the floor
curled up in fear in front of the news?
Who was that lurking
behind the answering machine message that stopped
my heart for good this morning?
Which of those insane, incestuous, venal little avatars
took you in a public place, slit you like an envelope
and stole the precious news of you from me
before I ever read it through and understood it?
I get you, Olympus. Get you good.
Don’t even bother trying
to get right with me. No mask
or artifice is going to work.
If whoever it was thinks
I will ever sacrifice to them again,
they’re crazy.
If you think
I’ll ever trust another stranger
not to be a bastard god in disguise again,
they’re crazy.
You killed her.
No mortal would have had the heart to do it.
It’s one of the fragile
hours. If I look
at the clock, I’ll see it
shiver and splinter. Any chance
of going to bed early will be
gone, and I’ll know that
at once and begin to pine
for the lost opportunity.
I’ll avoid that and keep the evening
intact. No use destroying
a sacred object with attention
to the restraints we keep on it.
I will stay here, in the envelope
of the moment, here in the poem.
You will say I should not speak
of the poem, that to write of it
is to cheapen the art. You may as well
ask the priest to never speak
of his office, how the presence of his God
is entirely revealed
in his movements
and in the words she speaks.
We do this for a purpose:
the writing, the chanting
are a shield against the shattering force
of the quotidian wave. Shall I never
be allowed to say that this is how I stop
the day, that this is how
transient things are made permanent?
It’s a blasphemy I won’t abide: I proclaim
that I live to stay here in the poem and deny the clock
that crushes the moment beyond remembering,
and that the bed that called me earlier tonight
is still there, still calling, will be heeded
at some point, but first
the rituals that make the present safe
must be observed.
See that house
with the long driveway
two doors down?
They’ve got something like
a bear
in there.
His captors, about whom
we know little, seem
not to listen to him
and want to keep him hidden.
I’ve never seen him myself,
but it’s obvious that he’s there:
you can hear
the bear soliloquy
at all hours, a Hamlet
bear mourning and raging
at his current impotence,
demanding answers
from his parentage
regarding his current state.
One of these days
that beast is going to get out
and come looking for
vengeance on everyone
who knew about him
and kept quiet. All these quiet homes
are going to be destroyed,
I’ve got money on it
and I’ll tell you: we’ll almost
deserve it. Almost
because who were we
to question what was being done
in the name of our security
and safety? It would have stirred
too much if we’d challenged
the rationale for keeping such a force
so trapped and caged.
Besides,
the property values would have gone down.
Who’d want to live in a place
where such angry and deprived souls
could run free and claim what’s theirs,
even if that’s
all they want?
If they could have been that way
from the start, maybe I’d feel different,
but now it almost seems
too late for that. Best, I guess,
to stay armed and just
listen to them, alert
for the sound
of escape.
The art
of saying
the right thing:
hanging motionless
in speech-time,
conscious
of being
letter perfect.
A still
life of a breath
unit.
Enough?
That’s the wrong word —
should have stopped earlier,
as of course
it is.
the full snazztone
of a well-banged guitar
chugging over racing heartbeat bass
and silver charge of cymbals.
my morning soundtrack:
mission of burma.
fit it in before working.
make it loud as a factory.
this is the sound of working.
bare bones virtuosity
manacled to a deadline and an end result
and never taking over
just because it can.
folks make this music.
it’s folk music.
get to work.
there’s still so much to do.
Under
the moon, all of Cordoba
sleeps
as my lover spins suspended from the air itself
in white linen above the fountain,
glistening from the spray.
No one may see this except this dreamer,
and I dare not say a word of it —
I can hear her singing
as the scents
of cinnamon and cardamom
float past me.
I shall not speak of this, ever,
even to her. But I shall carry
this, her fragrance and the silk shine
of her above me, not goddess
but such a human, more real tonight than I,
until I close my eyes for the last time
under another Cordoban moon
that will surely rise on another night of yearning
when I am old, tired of waking life yet glad of my memory.
You are certainly
laughing at us all now
for our struggles
as we try to balance
stopping our lives to mourn you
and trying to get on with our lives.
I picture you
bent double, howling tenderly at us all,
saying to yourself:
Did you hear anything I said?
You don’t stop, not even to mourn.
We’re all together at a movable feast
and you should move with it,
carrying your grief with you
at the speed of blood rushing
through your ever-faithful hearts.
My dead TV is flashing
words at me in Arabic script.
I catch them from the corner
of my eye. I do not understand
Arabic, but I believe these words
are saying that I must soon write
a love poem like those
from the days of Arab Andalusia.
Why not believe that?
It’s four in the morning,
I can’t sleep, and I will slap meaning
on anything at this hour
if I can rest when I’m done. After all,
I spent hours tonight snarking with friends online
as we laughed at the Grammy
Awards, fer Chrissakes. I don’t think
that was a waste. Anytime you can see
that much information about what is valued
in a society in one place, it’s worth watching,
even if only to examine again why you recoil
from so much of what is around you. And
in any such exercise, you’re bound to be taken
by something — for instance, by the sight
of a nearly naked woman dripping wet
suspended above a shiny crowd as she sang
something slight and ephemeral,
exposing herself to danger and ridicule
in the name of — Art? Artifice? Both?
There were those chiming in who thought it was foolish
to even be watching such crap, some of whom
were poets who hide behind contrived stage names
and adopt personas to perform in venues
seen as ridiculous by others. It’s all the same,
isn’t it? It’s about money, identity, and industry bent
to the service of getting something out there
that matters to someone, that gives someone else
a chance to believe in redemption
through the setting up masks we can believe in,
to spectacle aimed at a commerce in filling
the emptiness of our lives. And I’d lay odds every love poem
we honor from the old days
wasn’t written by a pure soul.
Some of those poems
were written for money, some to get laid,
some were written by cynics seeking fame
who knew exactly how a reader would take them to heart.
If I want to believe
in finding truth in the illusions foisted on me
by a trick of the light on a TV screen,
I will. If I want to believe that Lady Gaga
might offer me some glimpse
into something worth considering,
I will. You find your meaning
where it finds you. And if I want to imagine Cordoba
tonight, while meditating on the afterimage of Pink suspended,
and if I then decide to write a poem that re-imagines her
drenched by Spanish fountains
under a twelfth century moon, singing to her lover,
who dares to say that what it took to write it
was not worth doing? I see Arabic script
and a moistened beauty
on the TV screen, and something is calling me to write
about them, even if neither is real.
Things are only worthless if you allow them no worth.
Dime by dime
and penny by penny
you fill the paper rolls for the rent
and dream of folding money
in piles and drifts you’ll need to wade
to get to the door between you
and real life
while the rattle of old windows
mocks you scolding that
you’re not going far
with cold feet and thin socks
and cheap shoes and worn coats
Here’s news for you
this is the real life
vibrating with potential
and success defined in making do
and getting by with lovemaking
at odd hours and rough moments
when there’s nothing to do
and the cable’s unpaid
and the phone’s shut off
and the gas might go any minute
so you draw together and laugh
at the way your breath comes faster
as you kiss against the broken bed
and the gritty walls of bargain paint
So faster and harder than poverty can smash your mouths
you smash your mouths in love and hard wanting
and softer than the cold wind can slip under the door
you slip into the good sleep of afterwards
Those who dare to make things work
make them work rich or poor
and satisfaction comes to the wealthy
at least as much through sex
as it does through anything else
So don’t lie alone until the day you’ll be rich
as it may not come
Bring yourself to joy
with pennies and dimes in paper rolls
and find the embraces
in the always generous night
There are men
I admire, men
I’d never want to be,
who live only in movies.
They swing hard and
shoot straight,
breathe easily
afterward.
I know
there’s nothing real
about such ruthless
competence
at movement
and violent
problem solving.
This is why I can stare
and gasp
at the reddening ease
of their lives,
their stone confident faces
and their swift clean up,
the knives stroked against
their thighs before they are folded
and put away for next time.
I am in thrall to this myth
of success at all costs
that leaves no trace upon
the successful. The heroes
enter my life for a time
and leave me gasping
at such a possibility, even as I struggle
to get myself off the couch
and do something, anything
that might come to fruition
in a small way in my small life.
Give me one moment from your disdain
to love these killers,
to love the efficiency
of their elimination of obstacles
as I cannot seem to do it for myself.
It’s the only satisfaction I can find
in the steady drip of a faded life.
It’s a beauty, a terrible attractiveness
I abhor, but I cannot look away.
Reading the online news of my world, I see
that Victor writes of this morning’s light
that it is “bright but harsh.”
I agree, and go back to bed
until the afternoon
has softened into overcast. Ah, that’s better.
My mood, now? The heartbeat’s
back to normal, I can look at the paper,
only begin to weep when I hear
the recording of her voice exhorting us all
to live. I hear my own voice at the end
offering love, uttering the catchphrase
we’ve all learned to use over these last weeks
to exhort her to do the same. Last night,
under the bright but harsh wolf moon,
she went on her way and now we’ve got a decision to make
about exactly what we’re supposed to do
with that inconvenient command,
“live.” If the morning after is so harsh
that we crawl back to bed to avoid it,
should we dare to claim to have heard anything she said?
I know it’s only been a few hours
and we easily have an excuse — but would she
have done so? I don’t know; she loved the night so much
that maybe waiting
for it to start before we start makes sense.
But maybe we’re supposed to take action
under whatever light the world throws at us.
Maybe having the right light before we begin
isn’t the point.
The clouds have moved in this afternoon,
so that wolf moon won’t be in the sky tonight,
at least not so we can see. I’m going out
no matter what. I’ll rely on the light of what I can’t see:
the moon, the light reflecting off the teeth of legendary wolves,
the red hair of a novice angel,
the glow in the center of the word,
“live.”
I first wrote this poem in 2008 for a sick friend, the extraordinary poet Brenda Moossy, who eventually passed from cancer. Tonight, almost a year to the day from Brenda’s transition, the slam community is mourning the passing and celebrating the life of Gabrielle Bouliane, who left us tonight after a brief struggle with cancer. In her last days, G was surrounded with the light and love of the whole extended slam poetry community. I offer this again, amended now with her in mind.
All of the events recounted in the poem are things that I’ve witnessed in my many years in the Slam Family. Those of us who’ve been around for a while may recall these incidents; others in the family may have heard of some of them; still others may not know of them at all. I hope that even those of you who know or care nothing for slam as a form of poetry will still get a sense of how we are with each other, and why we are so close, even when we disagree.
When it comes right down to it, we’re a family. And this is for my family, above all.
Bunny up, Gabrielle, and all of us. Love to all, tonight and always…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
WHAT IS POETRY?
1.
a hat in the middle of a quickly cleared dance floor
in a connecticut italian club
regie announces
“brenda’s purse got stolen
along with all the cash she needed to get home to arkansas
you know what to do”
and that hat is filled in five minutes
with more cash than brenda started with
2.
i don’t even remember your names
but there we were
in a dogs only downpour
strolling uncovered toward
an impromptu reading in the massachusetts woods
and not caring about the cold and wet
because everyone was together
3.
pat’s blurred vision
sucking down all the faces
for the last time
in a nyc high style lounge
because someone went and found him
in tompkins square park
huddled under newspapers
and said
“we’re all there
you need to be there”
and they got him past the bouncers
got him in for the last time
4.
ken talking incessantly
about sleater kinney and the wars against us all
for hours and hours on a bus
breaking the flow only when we sang
“uncle fucker” to reverend bill as loud as we could
over a cell phone
and none of us on that bus being embarrassed
to dance right down the steps
and into a baltimore club
to james brown
because we were going into share
words with friends
5.
high desert outside albuquerque
four of us fruitlessly watching
a clouded sky
for the perseid shower
and not feeling the need
to say a thing
6.
angela in a cheer costume
shaking pompoms and wheezing
“gimme a p-o-e-t-r-y”
at a crowd of people who never thought
of cheering for such a thing
7.
scowling at
“these kids these days”
with another guy named bill
in a seattle diner
while two crustpunks
drop poems of the road
on a microphone that hasn’t been silent
for a week
but both of us keeping our ears cocked
and noting every word
saying at the end
“that wasn’t bad”
8.
listening to you running lines
in an empty theater before a bout
putting an arm around you when you broke down
afraid that people had forgotten you were also a poet
assuring you that no one
had ever doubted that for a second
(gabrielle, when you first saw this poem
you loved it
and now, you are in it
what can I say except
we’re poets
and this is what poets do for each other)
9.
shadowing
the modern stars of all this twaddle
and all of us knowing there’s someone we don’t know
watching
out there
hearing this and saying
“i could do that better
if i ever get the nerve
if i ever get the chance”
and each of us praying that they do
and each of us looking for our role
in making it happen
10.
the mystery
of a blank screen
an open notebook
and wondering how it is
that all things are there before us
but we’re not capable
of bringing them forth
when we can see them right there
before us
plain as paradise
and trying anyway
11.
knowing i would never have known you
without this
and being more than grateful
that I have learned who I am
because of you
12.
holding your dear
shaking hands
unmercifully but with all the simple courage
i can give you
I say
you
you are this
you are one
alone
but not alone
Dark Matter
Dark Matter 