A Poem of Somalian Piracy

I. The Chastisement

Thou shalt not read this
furthermore without the slim slap
of the mother waiting for her sons
at the doors of the ancient cathedrals,
down by the polished stones,
reverent river rocks of the Apache
in the oldest canyons of purgatory.

There is a wine-red glow in the shallows,
a tin flash in the sun dazzle.

A grim voice, no comparison.

On the deck we watched Bayruth
until the night churned a path
away into the foam. The sea
already spread into an oily wound
of war. There were no choices
but to watch and wonder, pray
for the steadfast. A telemachas-vision in the mess
bright with simple animations; children and women
held tight to the cots and cribs
of the Navy whose cargo was labeled:

The hypocrisy of mighty charities,
dry forms in the ether
the pirates of democracy contained
in the hold of great ships made
of steel and already sold to India
to outflank the archaics
in the next war, pirates
who pimp ships to battle, the
slaves in the caves of byzantium:
someone's children, someone's baby
no one knows how hard they've tried.
And few, if any, know the seeds
that are planted on distant shores,
no one knows this Obleo.

II The Reckoning

One vessel after another was boarded,
time zones failed the miserable ticking,
sleep impossible and tears plenty.
Some had been herded three times before
and others returned to the docks of Bayruth
unwilling to flee and able to bear witness
if only for one more day in the longest history
of the utopias, proud and prejudiced, as if to say:

we are not your playthings and your pathology
isn't what it used to be, a kind of show business.

O pathologie of the ancient
twisted mind rage, a cornered
battered animal with false teeth
shriven to the core, cavity stricken.
Blind, belligerent, cursed and chosen
for a confessio of popularity,
a pharoah's shadowy throne?
The several refusals and rebukes
are all out there, the big stone
idol witnessed the smaller ones
being beaten into gravel
and was silent, like so many poets.
Pardon and unpardon the pastors,
reveal and unreveal the pleasantries,
make and unmake everything into barter.

III The gray steps lead up to the Cedars

The creek Zacatecas meanders downhill,
swells and shrinks, borrows rocks
bones, marbles and screws.
Older stories are told in the silt beds,
grass returns as green
as the day grass was born.
No one knows the ancients
when time speeds up.
An ant carries the dead body
of an ant, drops it
then walks in a circle
around the corpse, nudges
his comrade once more and moves on.
War is the basic story of all things
pleasant and otherwise, empires
fall in the anthills eternal.
Forests plead with the fires and wind,
the ever returning floods.
Nothing lasts forever except the creation
and even that, is a trick of light
a toast to the cedars!
Mighty cedars in rain, cedars in mine
and bible, perpetually holding still.
Continually growing old for Gilgamesh
and the return of the ancient teacher,
the boat slayer, the little green man Kadr
with his problematic conundrums.

IV. To The Immortals

A great throng, generations of nostalgia
and those who believe they will remain









a thousand years more to discuss
the outcomes of Armageddon

your masks are made of stone,
metal hip bones and gravity defied
by the priests who guarantee
a kind monasticism, pedantic really.
Monk, Priest, Idolatress
are the foods of the iconoclasts
and the sand you leave behind
is the same sand to build more.
This awakening is only a taste,
there is no recovery room in hell,
no narcan and certainly few surprises.
Spring is for the resurrected
and goblets are full of rain.
The descriptives escape most,
the heat waves closer and the constant
night in the outline of shadows,
the gap free echo of the ether
is the chalk outline walking sideways
towards the joining hour, the eden time.
Do you not visit the graves of the ancients?

V. Mankind

In the days of distant myth
local stories drew close and closer
the parables of the future lay
dying in grassy fields full of markers,
where flocks used to go, herds
there, where seeds are planted
one by one, the now burnt
forests. Men like the sea
gathering the fog to themselves
in the dreamy coats of dawn
in tents of stone, breakfast gardens,
where graves full of saints stay sweetly buried.
How the mule used to bray
when one of them died but now

there are too many

and the herds run amok - invasion weary,
people rebuilding for the 100th
time, plaster gives up to the rain
before it starts and rust is soon.

VI. Troy

A summer it was
the city full of hot dreams
Standard and Quaker
the sea just full of it,
unquenchable, out of reach
near the boat wrecks there.
The head of Augustus, El Cid Pimpus
Aquarius, maybe two-hundred
thousand bronze cast idols lay
over it in the churning
deeps under ossified
strata, girder strata,
the strata of the quiet
years foreign between layers
Corinthian to the modern treasuries
cast into the deeps, strata
of sewage and sinew,
the lightweight strata of letters
fixed in juxta
bracelets of ruby, garnets
for eardrums, her eyes
were sapphire in the sweet wood
of the mines. Nothing but teeth
and guesswork in a blanket of fuel.

That summer the voices brought flags
to the indigenes, herded them into trans-
ports, gave 'em a bit of water,
some bread and cheese maybe
and told them to cry

A stalwart muslim's ha been killed
now cry, an easy compliant crowd
of schoolchildren and house-help.

I know it is true cuz I wuz there
minding my own business, plying
my trade quietly not asking
for forgiveness or barter, few
friends had I save for the tricks
of the fathers, doting diligent men.
Schoolmasters 'til ten then after
lunch the brazen begin
in offices and backstrips.
They'd see a Russian bargirl or Romanian
or an Asian, no funds ever changed hands
until day break in a distant room.
Sometimes up in this very same edifice.
She'd come in as if to clean up a bit
for the tenant 'out of the country'
who'd left his keys with a friend.

So I know it's true, all of it and no
one can pay a woman
like me to lie, I won't do it
although the tenant did try -
gave mepickled batinjaen
and clocks. Oh he'd do it alright
but I never turned by back
on him, a daring
thief from the Be'aaah Valley.

What a dear valley for potatoes!
Potatoes like human heads, pearly
white with thin skin and guns.
So what I relate is true, belligerent
with the good intentions to advise
the innocent. I once was that too
disbelieving, minding my own business
plying my trade, not asking
for barder nor accepting any bribe.
In other words, I was trying
hard to please myself sometimes
but not more than that.

Late at night -early
in the morning sounds in the stair
well, he'd be carrying a crate
of tomatoes, his pockets full
of cash -he worked as a newspaper
salesman, so he said, so the hours
were quite odd, deliquent even.
There'd be the sound of a bag
placed near my door,
then he'd go up the last flight
of stairs, the lock would groan
and his keys would be finally
silent as he made something
in the kitchen, cold food
for a bachelor somewhat
of a criminal but a passionate one
who'd touch any woman he could:
wife, sister, baby - he didn't care,
just wanted something feminine
to take care of. I'd pull away
and complain to mi esposo
pero no mucho entonces
I pitied him and he pitied me -
a tenuous love and honesty
is the issue when they pay
poor people to cry.

Beirut is mostly tent and the buildings
are sometimes stone and sometimes
sticks. It is a mobile edifice
for treason and statuary, shifting
shadows of the markets, a newspaper-
man is a convenient neighbor
when a Valentine arrives -
Bloody Big Hole in the Heart
of the city, the blood ran
for two whole years in the aquaducts.

All the while he'd bring his
cash and tomatoes in the early
hours and I'd wait morning,
then afternoon, then eveing
plying my trade of watching
then writing the treaties.
I never wore shoes and contracted
the hookworm's cough
so I could reach his door
unnoticed as if a sleeping baby
was inside, the big door would open
and his eyes were large, they'd open
more, he was twice my size
and kept a toy gun in the foyer.
He'd grab me and pull me close
to catch my old thrills
if only tangentially, his hands
were very large.
Then he'd hury back to bring
some chocolates. He loved
chocolates, really really loved
chocolates, German ones.
Near the settee where once
we drank tall glasses of apple
juice and the Philistine for hire
thought we were drunk on whiskey.
He was a cheat and I caught
his eyes in a glance at my breasts -
didn't like it and the philistine
thought I'd not notice nor would I
notice he'd started stealing
my properties, one and the same.