Poetry, April 2008 through July 2008


The Etiology of Mr. X


as if it was blown into the halo of park lightsbetween strike three and batter up - Darla Whitehead, Pack of Lies

Yesterday about noon, this fellow
finds us out in the sun and says
he wants his test done now.
We of ambigious natures, nurses
working towards Armageddons
big and small, tow each other
like bricks into rooms
full of camphor and prevention.
It all starts there in the clinics,
under chairs where little girls
run to scream and hide. Big boys
grow pale and old men come to us
before they die to talk
about their daughters, to talk
about their sons. It has been
a long time of such things,
keeping the secrets of nature alive
in our pockets and cupboards,
writing down our sincerities
in diaries on demand. Up front
there are drawers full of history,
treacherous rumours named Murphy and Cline.
His hat suits him well I think
as he chatters on about his deeds.
What does this to us all?
What cause is there to explain?
I've lived and loved and laughed
this much and cried about the same.


I Land in the Lilacs

My irises aren't really
mine afterall but all the same
they are touched carefully,
split and soaked, ever-lasting
dutiful to the ages
and then some.
Rhizomes gently laid into
their earthy sockets
produce secret after secret
from who knows where,
who knows where.

A Long Way To Pocatello Tonight

Have you ever seen
such a clean crowd of people
sitting in their folding chairs
listening
chortling
have you ever seen
such a thing?

I have.

They're just everywhere,
they want stripper poets
killer poets and poets
who kill themselves
for a living
as ornery as that
must sound

to the untrained ear

that doesn't know
too much about
poetry but alot
about sitting in an audience.

It's a long way to Pocatello tonight
isn't it? I know it's a long way
but do tell me, how far?

Once, we met Rothenberg
and he knew about that distance
to Pocatello. Just discovered it
and signed it for us in his own hand.

I might just tell him tonight
how far Pocatello is
when there is no audience
and life is just a watch and a wait.

Hope at Crowhaven Farm

If only at eight
I hadn't seen
Crowhaven Farm,
deliberated on it
during the long nights
when the rats
scurried around
in the ceilings,
if only at eight
I hadn't seen
the way they put
bricks upon Meg's chest,
called her a witch
and they were
all dressed up
for Thanksgiving,
if only I hadn't seen
Crowhaven Farm
in 1970,
my life would have been
not as it is
but as it was.

Everything's Connected

Trust when he says he was
in a coma for five months,
no one lies after a coma.
If they sleep, they sleep
only a little and insomnia
doesn't seem to bother them.
We all walked outside
together like that,
into the back alley
a perfect back alley
in a slow motion town
on the border
where I sat and considered
Framingham, Massachussetts.
A whole town measured out
grace in urine cups
and xrays. One by one
they told the truth about it
and Chagas is what you call
an emerging disease.
It gets up into your heart
after years of living on the edge.
I've seen those things on leaves
yet still, I never kill
a single one of them
or scorpions but I do
run away like a kid
fighting wasps. Once
I showed a furry
little beast to a poverty
stricken woman
and she crushed it.
It was a tarantula,
we're all just flesh and bone.
She was the first
to notice the invasion,
and ran up the hill
crying fee fi fo fum.
That was before the war
and power surges
took everything
we thought we owned.
It's one of the best things
that ever happened
but now, I don't take
any chances and put
nets over my bean stalks
so the birds don't take them,
carefully, Icount them every day.


The Colonialist With A Thousand Faces
- Allah bears witness that there is no god but He, 3:18

Up on highway eighty
you can see what fire does
and what it does not.
I have to wonder about the two
British ladies in Tombstone
who wanted to go to the
Chicawow-wows, to Apache lands.
One of them
just now wearing
her new wide-brimmed hat,
one of them hoping
for the Organ Pipe National Forest.
She tells me Britain
has history and you've got Geology.
Like I don't know
what we call in these parts:

diddly squat.
Oh! such mighty deportations!
La ila'ha il'la Huwa,
mammoths in caliche,
this is my beloved slag.

See that here? The color of the map
in Yuma is gray. There is a reason
for that. Go up the San Simon way,
take the Gleeson road
but first stop by and see
what the fire does not do
over time
to the miners and the mining.
Trust me, skip Las Vegas.
We're all just tourists,
those are all my fathers
and as I shimmy into town
through the Mule Pass
it is all very new to me.
Once again, the long way.

The Game Over Plan

Which sky does the wind
whip through now,
which city is torn apart
and blended; which one
isn't? Fighters defend
one after another
with flags and buckshot,
where to hit
the wind? Where can
so much water go
if the wind makes peace
and leaves the load
without a treaty, sans
policy in a stalemate
of disillusionment?
These blossoms cannot lie:
when the bee quits,
she quits. When the river
stops, she stops.
When death comes, we agree.

The Trembling of Ropes Inside of Wells

This selfish little spot called
our prayers and ablutions
is filled with noises in the morn
and the darkness within the night.
The spider and the gnat
are signs to those who know,
the bee and the ant
are signs to those who know,
the sun and the moon
are signs to those who know.
But who are they?

This Particular Sea

There are so many lights
in the windows, the stars,
so many openings and silence
reveals the movement of night
creatures in the dust
through the leaves
what are they and where?
There are so many secrets
in these places of mine
so many left over pieces
to talk about
and I do.
The dog doesn't really care
but he stays until I am done.
He stays a bit longer
to examine something
in the night, some noise.
A rustle in the bushes -
a traitor it seems
is on the loose again.
This particular sea
is mighty, it is deep.
There is so much drowning there,
so many broken things,
left-open eyes.

San Juan, the Conspicuous

When someone says Life!
I cringe and creep behind
the curtains once more.
What do they know afterall?

Each of these eyes
is a blind circuit,
each cherished rose
blends into it again.
Where did the wind
come from this time?
If only this one didn't
try to go missing,
if only this one
didn't pretend to be dead.

All About My Pious

If you could see what has been seen by those of you who have died, you would be puzzled and troubled. Then you would have listened and obeyed; but what they have seen is yet curtained off from you. Shortly, the curtain would be thrown off. You have been shown, provided you see and you have been made to listen provided you listen, and you have been guided if you accept guidance. I spoke unto you with truth. You have been called aloud by examples and warned through items full of warnings. After the heavenly messengers , only man can convey message from Allah. - Emir Ali ibn Abi Taleb, Commander of the Faithful, Lion of Allah, May Allah be pleased with his Ahl Bayt.

If a prayer could bring
you back to me, it
would be that one
you know, yes.
The empty cups for tea,
at least some sugar
for the flies,
the ones familiar
with it all.
Let's go back
in the shade,
to the peasants
who turn pots of wheat,
try something on.
What kind of novelty
is this ornery tale?

Blessed be the wars.

Your Amo Sol would mix
tree sap to catch
a thousand birds, Jafar
would break his arm

for you, as would
several believing men.

Amti Lena would sell
all of her dishes
and your grandmother
if she knew
would tear her heart
out, split and lay it
inside your high-heeled shoes.