Tuesday, February 25, 2020

Last Sonnet

Last Sonnet

Life is tied
to the mud.
I have tried
to sew my blood
with words for thread
to your eyes and ears
through the dead
space that steers
you to this line.
These words are yours to sing,
they are not mine;
I never finish anything

Monday, February 24, 2020

Metaphors for Page

Metaphors for Page

First

Our secret swells in the space between us
where it sticks to a fever that will not break.
Infected, sick on intersection,
you swoon and sway. You shake. I shake.
We fall because you cannot hold me.
Unburdened, you walk away
but I live in interaction
and wait for the dream of your eyes.

Second

You bloom against the olive
junipers forgotten in the shadow
of bricks that form a prayer of a building
decades past any purpose,
defiant beside flattened beer cans,
unmatched shoes, discarded people,
yet worry every moment with a scab of a question:
if no one picks you, what did you fight for?

Third

You split and can’t remember
where we ended but the need
to lose yourself in us grows.
I live where you look last,
I dream of sheared reality,
knowing just this century is broken.
Like us, it cries out of tune with time.
Stepping only to theory, it will never know
our song except as always wrong,
a glitch in your head skips memories,
chasing modern ghosts to you.

Fourth

The porch swing where you held me is rotten,
swaying in indescribable arcs,
bared boards revealing rusty screws,
chipping paint, one chain half broken,
the wind its lonely occupant.
You hear its weeping creaks.
If it remembered, if would long for us.

Fifth

Your eyes open from a dream
to the black immobile night whispering
Love is possible, like divorce.
You cry but I cannot hear.

Sixth

I am still here, my tongue split or spilt
by a palette of intoxicants,
unable to taste meaning.
Our silence how I got here;
not where we planned,
but here we are.
Though the exile is killing us,
no diplomat will translate our map or tongue
and we cannot close the distance.

Seventh

You want to touch me but,
only reach halfway
when you think about it.
At each midpoint I recede,
an empty synapse, a withered dendrite
you see from a shore where I sail and crash forever.
Always coming home, I am never there
but you await my return
because in the bones beneath words
you know our history is stronger than memory.

Eighth

If you look now you will find me
looking. You are holding me,
complete.
It doesn’t matter where I’m from,
only what we are together.
On this paper sea of pine and ink
I try to be something you remember.

Ninth

There is the moon. You strive to see it,
to save the image in your eye or lens,
but it is better to remember the feeling
of wanting to remember the moon.
Nothing we make will improve the memory
of the desire to keep what cannot be held.
So shift the focus of reality and sit;
remember the feeling of seeing a flower,
how it feels to live in a world of flowers,
what it would mean to not.

Tenth

The cold concrete calls you a poem
you used to know. You shuffle off
to find a grave, resting in a piece
of the earth’s tall Fourier transform,
praying dreams follow desire.
Curl into a ball with me,
crave the curve that creates.
Feel the heat of the swamp
keeping memories deep.
I cannot kill the ghosts that haunt you
but we will read them.

Eleventh

In the morning see the lines of two great cranes,
tall necks stretching,
blue backed they swing and dance,
dangling cables and steel
to shore
another skyscraper against gravity.

Twelfth

You know there is something wrong with you
but you’re wrong about what it is.
This world of stories breathes on you like me.
It’s not nostalgia if you never had a home.
Psemalgia would be longing for a lie
if it were a word but don’t believe it,
our story is always true:
what we know can’t be as important
as you.

Last

Language starts in broken bodies;
pick up our pieces, read me again,
be in me the way I am in you.
When you think about it it all seems so unreal
but you do too. Logic cannot cleave
the necessary distance between us.
I need your eyes to come alive,
your skin to measure my edges.
At the end we hold together:
a temporary bandage,
a permanent wound.

This Is Not My Town

This Is Not My Town

Wide streets with no
sidewalks where cars
rip by like there
are no children
in the world. Trees
trimmed for growing
the way trees grow.

Sagging strip malls
and red lights and
exhaustion. There

is a river.
The river is
a great thing but
for the fact that
we don’t want to
eat from it or
swim in it. The
diesel swill and
concrete banks make
a dip or fish
too hard to get.
So we see the
river through the
grates of bridges.
We have lovely
bridges. Spans of
architecture
too disparate
downtown to make
a difference.

I wish this were
my town. I was
born here in a
hospital that
has been renamed.
Or torn down. I
can’t remember.

I think it’s the
hospital you
don’t want to go
to anymore.
I live here. I
moved back here. But
my house is an
oasis in
a neighborhood
this town forgot.
My neighborhood
looks like my town.
But there’s nothing
to buy here but
fried fish and crack
and red drink. And
who but me would
buy anything
else? That’s what the
owners would tell
you anyway
even if all
folks love good food.

We walk around
the block with the
dogs or play in
granny’s front yard
two houses down.
My neighborhood
is my town but
this town is not
my town. Over
in another
part of town that’s
not my town there
are some poets
reading. They talk
about their lives.

No one really
cares because they’ve
got to get up
to work a job
that was once a
factory job
but now maybe’s
pushing paper.
Or if they are
lucky they work
for the Navy
or the shipyards.
Anyway they
are not at the
poetry jam.
And the reading
isn’t where you
would want to go.
Not one of the
nice beer bars or
few dinner clubs.
The food here is
good. But you can’t
eat words and so
no one shares them.

So I sit on
this bench staring
at the river.
I can see a
bridge to my left.
My daughters chase
fiddler crabs on
the concrete shore.
None of this is
mine but now it’s
yours.

Alaska

Alaska

Lone, the starched beaches stretch beyond me;
Bold mountains cold as the artists’ blood
Stare me down like I can answer earthquakes.
Teutonic, washed in a culture of knives,
I watch for anything to read in these lights,
The rising Phoenix of what never was:
Myths dead and dying; born and reborn
Between the broken synapses of my brain:
My neural net holds nothing but memories,
Space, and language.

I remember nothing
Between our hands but Coulomb repulsion,
Touching only in the waves where we were one.
Though the night holds simple mysteries,
How I would have held you, Alaska:
Frozen, the way you hold my dreams
In this pretended past we all agree upon:
Truthful darlings that never grow old,
Wrecked upon the rocks of necessary use
Where we wait to recover our petty youth.
Cleaved from the dream of you I remember
Our embrace that meant desired death,
To live suspended by the temptation to be
Immortal in the living words of loved language,
Tongues passed down through book and kiss,
Indelible as pheromones and phonemes.

O you who pass by, bound tight to your mast,
Tell me, on the shore, what have I missed?

Was it impressed in the smeared brass
Of a second line sousaphone, crying I’ll fly away
As the women in tall hats stepped like the dead?
Junked beats once forgotten jazz me into motion
In this sunken city held up by heat and memory,
Preserved by stained statues and cracking cathedrals,
Where black men hawk Heinekens and what never was
Except in realms where parallel lines bend together,
Glowing in planes squared to infinite spheres
Storied shards that build legends from fallen timbers,
Marble graves, and misuse.

I know this music,
Muse, and it uses me too.

Used and quiet on the banks of the river,
I wish this concrete were weathered rocks,
not stones pounded, priced, mixed, and poured.
Would I were crystalline, latticed and strong,
Laced with lovely inconsistencies;
I should not even mind the chisel’s edge
Cleaving mineral children from me,
Strong shards, bathed in this humid state.
But cleave me and I will not facet. I will crumble,
My silicosis sin choking my darlings
Unless by miracle the misaligned stones
Mistaken for bones grow straight within them.

Everything erodes. Nothing is the greatest memory.
I remember Alaska only in dreams.
Rooted in fear I lie on these lines of sand,
Dreaming of everything that can never be,
Praying for the strength to love the things that are,
Knowing everything we are propagates
Within those within us. On the syzygy of memory,
Dream, and reality, I fall.

On beaches I have never been
My dreams grow immense, untenable in their enormity.

Lothing and Hoes at the 48th Street Winn-Dixie


Lothing and Hoes at the 48th Street Winn-Dixie

The sky is broken into red and blue over the 48th Street Winn-Dixie;
divided by a black column of cloud, Jacksonville hosts
one of those after-the-storm sunsets no one would buy in a Dali.
We’re leaving for Polk County and the past tomorrow                      
and I gotta grab a few things before the trip: fruit, diapers,
half and half, steaks. The parking lot steams in the twilight;
even though it’s nearly nine o’clock, the humidity won’t let go.
I grab the driest cart from the lot and try to ignore its bum wheel.
When I walk in, I wave at the same security guard and cashiers
who’ve been here since we moved up to North Shore.
The store’s changed hands three times since then but it hasn’t changed.
I want to pretend that we know each other but I’ve never introduced myself.
I catch myself singing “hello!” with Pearl Jam playing on the Muzak.
I go to the small natural food section first. Julio the manager told me
the only customers who shop that section are us and a two tattooed kids.
Most of it gets near date and they trash it or sell it to Solomon’s.
I wish they’d give it away, enough folks around here need it.
I’ve seen those tattooed kids before; roommates, siblings, or maybe a couple,
locking eyes as we reached for the last pack of grass-fed beef
or scoured the clearance shelves for organic non-perishables at blow-out prices;
there’s not a lot of demand for gluten-free cookies in our neighborhood.
Usually they’re headed in different directions. He does a Sherlock on prices
while she cradles fresh fruit like Saturn. They never look at each other
until today; when I see them near the galas. Everything is different with them.
He’s searching her for clues but she is a Zeus to his Hera.
They’re setting a scene. I try not to stare but it’s the only thing happening.
Apart from “pardon me” or “do you think this is a good deal on kale?”
I’ve never heard her talk, but it’s impossible not to hear her today.
“Every time we went to a restaurant the server brought us separate checks.
What does that mean? What does that tell you?”
“We’re egalitarian and it shows?”
She rolls her eyes. I see her face above the tattoo of an octopus on his left bicep.
I really should be looking for starfruit and kiwis right now but I’m not.                                        
Instead, I’m staring at what’s either the Washington Monument or Excalibur
on arms she’s thrown into the air. He shrugs and grabs a nectarine.
“Do these smell right to you?” Her eyes narrow.
“We need to talk about this.
I didn’t agree to meet you here so we could talk about nectarines.”
“I don’t want to talk. I just want to come home.”
“Well you can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t ‘just come home.’ It’s not your home any more.”
And then she’s gone. He looks at me and says “what?” I fumble
with my phone and check out the price of pickling cucumbers at Earth Fare
as if I’d drive across town to save five cents a pound. I don’t believe myself.
I walk away to check the terrible deli selection on the off chance
there’s real food in the hot case. Nothing, not even decent wings like Publix.
I’ll have to go to Hip Hop Chicken on the way home for an impulse buy.
I find myself following them into the meat section looking for a good deal
on steaks that expire tomorrow. They’re in poultry but you can hear them in seafood.
“What do you mean you ‘rearranged the kitchen’? I was only gone for two days.”
“I can reach everything I need now. I always had to ask you for help before.”
“I liked that you needed me. Now you don’t need me.”
“No. I don’t.”
She’s turned away from him. He’s staring through her, trying to find the words
that will turn them around. I can’t give him the words. I can only think,
like him, I have seen them so often but didn’t know what they were.
Pearl Jam ends and a blues song from Nirvana’s Unplugged takes its place.
I turn down the soda aisle. He murmurs something that becomes a shout.
“Why don’t you tell me what you really think of me? Of us?”
“I don’t think of us.
We are unhappening. We are something that never was.
I don’t need you to make rent. I don’t want you to reach the top shelf.
I. Don’t. Want. You. I. Don’t. Want. Us.” She walks away. He holds the air.
“This is just a rough patch, you’ll see. We can get through this.”
“This is not a rough patch. Our marriage was a rough patch.”
She closes her eyes. She’s done now. She moves toward the exit sign.
Agape, akimbo, he looks up at the ceiling, looking for all the world
like he’s doing calculus in his head, or praying. “Did you fuck him?”
She stops. “Is that what you’re waiting for? Yes! I did. Happy?
Yes I did. After you left. What does it matter? We were through.”
He poisons his sorrow with fury. “Do I need to get tested?”
“No. I just said it was after you left. You never hear me.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? That you waited until I left?
We were—we are still married.”
“I doesn’t matter how it makes you feel. It is.
I don’t love you. I don’t remember loving you. You don’t make me cry.
You don’t make me laugh. You never have. I used to crawl
inside myself and sink when I thought of us, ashamed of my choice in you.
I don’t feel that any more because we aren’t.” He walks to her.
He’s a head taller than she is. He looks down. She doesn’t look at him.
“I’m doing the best I can not to spit on you.” She exhales and closes her eyes.
“I know. This shouldn’t be news to you but it is and I’m sorry you’re angry and hurt.




I wish you could move on, too. I know you’re hoping I have some doubts.
Our marriage was the ghost of my own doubt.
I’m not doubtful. I’m through.” She turns again to leave but he stops her
as he spits one word: “Whore.”
I’ve dropped all pretense that I’m not watching.
Everyone in the 48th Street Winn-Dixie is watching. Everyone is going to go home
and tell this story. She faces him. He’s shaking. “That ring on your finger.
It’s my grandfather’s. Give it back to me. Give me back my grandfather’s ring.
You’re not my wife. You’re a whore. Give me that ring, whore.”
“Would your grandfather be proud of you? Of your words? Of this?”
“Don’t talk about him. He’d want his ring back. Give me the ring, whore.” 
She pulls off the ring and drops it. Bouncing, it sounds like the highest handbell,
the only living sound in the silent store. One song ends, another begins.

Tears mark the floor. “I’ve never been more grateful we had no children.
When we chose not to have them, I didn’t know you’d always be one.”
She heads for the door. He follows. I follow them both, shameless.
They get in separate cars. His needs a belt. And tires. And bondo.
Hers is covered in bumper stickers. They drive away in different directions.
I want to call after them, “say instead your kisses are like wine!
Tell him his arms are towers! Tell her her breasts are the twin fawns of the gazelle!”
But what do I know of them, save we buy the same things?
What kin do we have beyond consumption? What ken can I bear here?
“Hey come back, I remember when this happened twenty years ago?”
Maybe amputation is the surgery that will save them from each other.
Maybe I see in them something I fear. Maybe those words are what I need to say.
I look down at my cart with the broken wheel. It’s empty.
Behind me they’re locking the doors of the 48th Street Winn-Dixie.
I go home empty handed to a house full of heartbeats and love.
I could say I forgot my wallet but why should one always lie about such matters?
I tell Heather there was a scene and I got distracted. It’s what I do.
Since we’re leaving tomorrow, we can grab what we need in the morning.
She laughs and pulls me close and tells me the kids are in bed.
I laugh and tell her her breasts are like the twin fawns of a gazelle.
She laughs again because she knows the Bible, if not the context,
and we stretch out on the our old couch together and drink a nap
and watch M*A*S*H and happily stay up too late, like we do.

When we go back to the 48th Street Winn-Dixie, the sky is crayon blue.
We pass a car, covered in bumper stickers, parked near the street,
and a girl I’ve only seen in stores sorting freshly pressed dress shirts
into a defaced green and white charity bin labeled  lothing and  hoes.



Sonnet for Detroit

Sonnet for Detroit

The iron oxide flowers, red and hoary;
dilapidated cars die rusting here
among old dogs that stalk their territory,
pissing on ancient cans of Pabst Blue beer.

The cranes scream, bending air with magnet claws
while crushed glass falls like leaden, empty snow
between metallic corpses and rubber gauze
that beg me to be dragged away, singing low.

The forklift strains beneath the ruddy weight
of broken hulls that carried families
from birth to death but now whose only fate
lies in the boiling flame and smelting breeze.

The fire that refines will make them new.
I wish to God that I was burning, too.

Winemaking

Winemaking

That’s not how you’re supposed to do it,
mashed up against me like a grape
one-half bruised and hidden
in your fingers.  Try one more time
but drop the act.  See my hands on my hips?
See my raised eyebrows?  I don’t believe
you.  You’ll want me to look
like this—to be relaxed.  See the smile?
See how my body’s open to your
plane of attack?  Now try it again:
here I am.

That’s not how you do it:
mashed up like a grape,
hidden and half-bruised.
Try your fingers one more time,
drop my hands on my hips,
raise my eyebrowed belief,
want me to look at you.
Relax my smile,
open my planes to your body.
Try your attack again.

How you do it:
A hidden grape
mashed up, half-bruised
on your fingers.
Hands on my hips
raised in belief
to look at you.
My smile relaxed,
my plane open
to your attack.

Do it,
hidden grape.
Mashed on
your fingers,
my hips,
in belief.
Look at you:
relaxed
open
to attack.

Do it:
grape-
mashed
fingers;
hips
believe.
Look: you
relax,
open—
attack.