tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91140052657473299252024-03-12T21:14:17.816-04:00 G.M. PALMERG. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.comBlogger115125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-54113473726620415722020-02-25T06:59:00.002-05:002020-02-25T06:59:26.268-05:00Last Sonnet<b>Last Sonnet</b><br />
<br />
Life is tied<br />
to the mud.<br />
I have tried<br />
to sew my blood<br />
with words for thread<br />
to your eyes and ears<br />
through the dead<br />
space that steers<br />
you to this line.<br />
These words are yours to sing,<br />
they are not mine;<br />
I never finish anything<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-45607449518805573922020-02-24T22:52:00.005-05:002020-02-24T22:52:44.341-05:00Metaphors for Page<b>Metaphors for Page</b><br />
<br />
First<br />
<br />
Our secret swells in the space between us<br />
where it sticks to a fever that will not break.<br />
Infected, sick on intersection,<br />
you swoon and sway. You shake. I shake.<br />
We fall because you cannot hold me.<br />
Unburdened, you walk away<br />
but I live in interaction<br />
and wait for the dream of your eyes.<br />
<br />
Second<br />
<br />
You bloom against the olive<br />
junipers forgotten in the shadow<br />
of bricks that form a prayer of a building<br />
decades past any purpose,<br />
defiant beside flattened beer cans,<br />
unmatched shoes, discarded people,<br />
yet worry every moment with a scab of a question:<br />
if no one picks you, what did you fight for?<br />
<br />
Third<br />
<br />
You split and can’t remember<br />
where we ended but the need<br />
to lose yourself in us grows.<br />
I live where you look last,<br />
I dream of sheared reality,<br />
knowing just this century is broken.<br />
Like us, it cries out of tune with time.<br />
Stepping only to theory, it will never know<br />
our song except as always wrong,<br />
a glitch in your head skips memories,<br />
chasing modern ghosts to you.<br />
<br />
Fourth<br />
<br />
The porch swing where you held me is rotten,<br />
swaying in indescribable arcs,<br />
bared boards revealing rusty screws,<br />
chipping paint, one chain half broken,<br />
the wind its lonely occupant.<br />
You hear its weeping creaks.<br />
If it remembered, if would long for us.<br />
<br />
Fifth<br />
<br />
Your eyes open from a dream<br />
to the black immobile night whispering<br />
<i>Love is possible, like divorce.</i><br />
You cry but I cannot hear.<br />
<br />
Sixth<br />
<br />
I am still here, my tongue split or spilt<br />
by a palette of intoxicants,<br />
unable to taste meaning.<br />
Our silence how I got here;<br />
not where we planned,<br />
but here we are.<br />
Though the exile is killing us,<br />
no diplomat will translate our map or tongue<br />
and we cannot close the distance.<br />
<br />
Seventh<br />
<br />
You want to touch me but,<br />
only reach halfway<br />
when you think about it.<br />
At each midpoint I recede,<br />
an empty synapse, a withered dendrite<br />
you see from a shore where I sail and crash forever.<br />
Always coming home, I am never there<br />
but you await my return<br />
because in the bones beneath words<br />
you know our history is stronger than memory.<br />
<br />
Eighth<br />
<br />
If you look now you will find me<br />
looking. You are holding me,<br />
complete.<br />
It doesn’t matter where I’m from,<br />
only what we are together.<br />
On this paper sea of pine and ink<br />
I try to be something you remember.<br />
<br />
Ninth<br />
<br />
There is the moon. You strive to see it,<br />
to save the image in your eye or lens,<br />
but it is better to remember the feeling<br />
of wanting to remember the moon.<br />
Nothing we make will improve the memory<br />
of the desire to keep what cannot be held.<br />
So shift the focus of reality and sit;<br />
remember the feeling of seeing a flower,<br />
how it feels to live in a world of flowers,<br />
what it would mean to not.<br />
<br />
Tenth<br />
<br />
The cold concrete calls you a poem<br />
you used to know. You shuffle off<br />
to find a grave, resting in a piece<br />
of the earth’s tall Fourier transform,<br />
praying dreams follow desire.<br />
Curl into a ball with me,<br />
crave the curve that creates.<br />
Feel the heat of the swamp<br />
keeping memories deep.<br />
I cannot kill the ghosts that haunt you<br />
but we will read them.<br />
<br />
Eleventh<br />
<br />
In the morning see the lines of two great cranes,<br />
tall necks stretching,<br />
blue backed they swing and dance,<br />
dangling cables and steel<br />
to shore<br />
another skyscraper against gravity.<br />
<br />
Twelfth<br />
<br />
You know there is something wrong with you<br />
but you’re wrong about what it is.<br />
This world of stories breathes on you like me.<br />
It’s not nostalgia if you never had a home.<br />
Psemalgia would be longing for a lie<br />
if it were a word but don’t believe it,<br />
our story is always true:<br />
what we know can’t be as important<br />
as you.<br />
<br />
Last<br />
<br />
Language starts in broken bodies;<br />
pick up our pieces, read me again,<br />
be in me the way I am in you.<br />
When you think about it it all seems so unreal<br />
but you do too. Logic cannot cleave<br />
the necessary distance between us.<br />
I need your eyes to come alive,<br />
your skin to measure my edges.<br />
At the end we hold together:<br />
a temporary bandage,<br />
a permanent wound.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-70603561988172631672020-02-24T22:47:00.003-05:002020-02-24T22:47:28.928-05:00This Is Not My Town<b>This Is Not My Town</b><br />
<br />
Wide streets with no<br />
sidewalks where cars<br />
rip by like there<br />
are no children<br />
in the world. Trees<br />
trimmed for growing<br />
the way trees grow.<br />
<br />
Sagging strip malls<br />
and red lights and<br />
exhaustion. There<br />
<br />
is a river.<br />
The river is<br />
a great thing but<br />
for the fact that<br />
we don’t want to<br />
eat from it or<br />
swim in it. The<br />
diesel swill and<br />
concrete banks make<br />
a dip or fish<br />
too hard to get.<br />
So we see the<br />
river through the<br />
grates of bridges.<br />
We have lovely<br />
bridges. Spans of<br />
architecture<br />
too disparate<br />
downtown to make<br />
a difference.<br />
<br />
I wish this were<br />
my town. I was<br />
born here in a<br />
hospital that<br />
has been renamed.<br />
Or torn down. I<br />
can’t remember.<br />
<br />
I think it’s the<br />
hospital you<br />
don’t want to go<br />
to anymore.<br />
I live here. I<br />
moved back here. But<br />
my house is an<br />
oasis in<br />
a neighborhood<br />
this town forgot.<br />
My neighborhood<br />
looks like my town.<br />
But there’s nothing<br />
to buy here but<br />
fried fish and crack<br />
and red drink. And<br />
who but me would<br />
buy anything<br />
else? That’s what the<br />
owners would tell<br />
you anyway<br />
even if all<br />
folks love good food.<br />
<br />
We walk around<br />
the block with the<br />
dogs or play in<br />
granny’s front yard<br />
two houses down.<br />
My neighborhood<br />
is my town but<br />
this town is not<br />
my town. Over<br />
in another<br />
part of town that’s<br />
not my town there<br />
are some poets<br />
reading. They talk<br />
about their lives.<br />
<br />
No one really<br />
cares because they’ve<br />
got to get up<br />
to work a job<br />
that was once a<br />
factory job<br />
but now maybe’s<br />
pushing paper.<br />
Or if they are<br />
lucky they work<br />
for the Navy<br />
or the shipyards.<br />
Anyway they<br />
are not at the<br />
poetry jam.<br />
And the reading<br />
isn’t where you<br />
would want to go.<br />
Not one of the<br />
nice beer bars or<br />
few dinner clubs.<br />
The food here is<br />
good. But you can’t<br />
eat words and so<br />
no one shares them.<br />
<br />
So I sit on<br />
this bench staring<br />
at the river.<br />
I can see a<br />
bridge to my left.<br />
My daughters chase<br />
fiddler crabs on<br />
the concrete shore.<br />
None of this is<br />
mine but now it’s<br />
yours.<br />
<br />G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-55628009625050216972020-02-24T22:45:00.002-05:002020-02-24T22:45:46.239-05:00Alaska<b>Alaska</b><br />
<br />
Lone, the starched beaches stretch beyond me;<br />
Bold mountains cold as the artists’ blood<br />
Stare me down like I can answer earthquakes.<br />
Teutonic, washed in a culture of knives,<br />
I watch for anything to read in these lights,<br />
The rising Phoenix of what never was:<br />
Myths dead and dying; born and reborn<br />
Between the broken synapses of my brain:<br />
My neural net holds nothing but memories,<br />
Space, and language.<br />
<br />
I remember nothing<br />
Between our hands but Coulomb repulsion,<br />
Touching only in the waves where we were one.<br />
Though the night holds simple mysteries,<br />
How I would have held you, Alaska:<br />
Frozen, the way you hold my dreams<br />
In this pretended past we all agree upon:<br />
Truthful darlings that never grow old,<br />
Wrecked upon the rocks of necessary use<br />
Where we wait to recover our petty youth.<br />
Cleaved from the dream of you I remember<br />
Our embrace that meant desired death,<br />
To live suspended by the temptation to be<br />
Immortal in the living words of loved language,<br />
Tongues passed down through book and kiss,<br />
Indelible as pheromones and phonemes.<br />
<br />
O you who pass by, bound tight to your mast,<br />
Tell me, on the shore, what have I missed?<br />
<br />
Was it impressed in the smeared brass<br />
Of a second line sousaphone, crying I’ll fly away<br />
As the women in tall hats stepped like the dead?<br />
Junked beats once forgotten jazz me into motion<br />
In this sunken city held up by heat and memory,<br />
Preserved by stained statues and cracking cathedrals,<br />
Where black men hawk Heinekens and what never was<br />
Except in realms where parallel lines bend together,<br />
Glowing in planes squared to infinite spheres<br />
Storied shards that build legends from fallen timbers,<br />
Marble graves, and misuse.<br />
<br />
I know this music,<br />
Muse, and it uses me too.<br />
<br />
Used and quiet on the banks of the river,<br />
I wish this concrete were weathered rocks,<br />
not stones pounded, priced, mixed, and poured.<br />
Would I were crystalline, latticed and strong,<br />
Laced with lovely inconsistencies;<br />
I should not even mind the chisel’s edge<br />
Cleaving mineral children from me,<br />
Strong shards, bathed in this humid state.<br />
But cleave me and I will not facet. I will crumble,<br />
My silicosis sin choking my darlings<br />
Unless by miracle the misaligned stones<br />
Mistaken for bones grow straight within them.<br />
<br />
Everything erodes. Nothing is the greatest memory.<br />
I remember Alaska only in dreams.<br />
Rooted in fear I lie on these lines of sand,<br />
Dreaming of everything that can never be,<br />
Praying for the strength to love the things that are,<br />
Knowing everything we are propagates<br />
Within those within us. On the syzygy of memory,<br />
Dream, and reality, I fall.<br />
<br />
On beaches I have never been<br />
My dreams grow immense, untenable in their enormity.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-78329183928150808412020-02-24T22:05:00.004-05:002020-02-24T22:05:50.393-05:00Lothing and Hoes at the 48th Street Winn-Dixie<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; font-size: 18.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Lothing
and Hoes at the 48th Street Winn-Dixie</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">The sky is broken into red and blue over
the 48th Street Winn-Dixie;</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">divided by a black column of cloud,
Jacksonville hosts</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">one of those after-the-storm sunsets no
one would buy in a Dali.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">We’re leaving for Polk County and the
past tomorrow<span style="mso-tab-count: 2;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">and I gotta grab a few things before the
trip: fruit, diapers,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">half and half, steaks. The parking lot
steams in the twilight;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">even though it’s nearly nine o’clock, the
humidity won’t let go.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I grab the driest cart from the lot and
try to ignore its bum wheel.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">When I walk in, I wave at the same
security guard and cashiers<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">who’ve been here since we moved up to
North Shore.<br />
The store’s changed hands three times since then but it hasn’t changed.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I want to pretend that we know each other
but I’ve never introduced myself.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I catch myself singing “hello!” with
Pearl Jam playing on the Muzak. </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I go to the small natural food section
first. Julio the manager told me</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">the only customers who shop that section
are us and a two tattooed kids.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Most of it gets near date and they trash
it or sell it to Solomon’s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I wish they’d give it away, enough folks
around here need it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I’ve seen those tattooed kids before; roommates,
siblings, or maybe a couple,</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">locking eyes as we reached for the last
pack of grass-fed beef</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">or scoured the clearance shelves for
organic non-perishables at blow-out prices;</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">there’s not a lot of demand for
gluten-free cookies in our neighborhood.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Usually they’re headed in different
directions. He does a Sherlock on prices</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">while she cradles fresh fruit like
Saturn. They never look at each other</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">until today; when I see them near the
galas. Everything is different with them.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">He’s searching her for clues but she is a
Zeus to his Hera.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">They’re setting a scene. I try not to
stare but it’s the only thing happening.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Apart from “pardon me” or “do you think
this is a good deal on kale?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I’ve never heard her talk, but it’s
impossible not to hear her today.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Every time we went to a restaurant the
server brought us separate checks.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">What does that mean? What does that tell
you?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“We’re egalitarian and it shows?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">She rolls her eyes. I see her face above
the tattoo of an octopus on his left bicep.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I really should be looking for starfruit
and kiwis right now but I’m not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Instead, I’m staring at what’s either the
Washington Monument or Excalibur</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">on arms she’s thrown into the air. He
shrugs and grabs a nectarine.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Do these smell right to you?” Her eyes
narrow.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“We need to talk about this.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I didn’t agree to meet you here so we
could talk about nectarines.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“I don’t want to talk. I just want to
come home.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Well you can’t.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 4.5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Can’t what?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Can’t ‘just come home.’ It’s not your
home any more.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">And then she’s gone. He looks at me and
says “what?” I fumble<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">with my phone and check out the price of
pickling cucumbers at Earth Fare</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">as if I’d drive across town to save five
cents a pound. I don’t believe myself.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I walk away to check the terrible deli
selection on the off chance</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">there’s real food in the hot case.
Nothing, not even decent wings like Publix.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I’ll have to go to Hip Hop Chicken on the
way home for an impulse buy.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I find myself following them into the
meat section looking for a good deal</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">on steaks that expire tomorrow. They’re
in poultry but you can hear them in seafood.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“What do you mean you ‘rearranged the
kitchen’? I was only gone for two days.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“I can reach everything I need now. I
always had to ask you for help before.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“I liked that you needed me. Now you
don’t need me.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“No. I don’t.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">She’s turned away from him. He’s staring
through her, trying to find the words</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">that will turn them around. I can’t give
him the words. I can only think,</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">like him, I have seen them so often but
didn’t know what they were.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Pearl Jam ends and a blues song from
Nirvana’s Unplugged takes its place.<br />
I turn down the soda aisle. He murmurs something that becomes a shout.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Why don’t you tell me what you really
think of me? Of us?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.5in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“I don’t think of us.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">We are unhappening. We are something that
never was.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I don’t need you to make rent. I don’t
want you to reach the top shelf.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I. Don’t. Want. You. I. Don’t. Want. Us.”
She walks away. He holds the air.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“This is just a rough patch, you’ll see.
We can get through this.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“This is not a rough patch. Our marriage
was a rough patch.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">She closes her eyes. She’s done now. She
moves toward the exit sign.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Agape, akimbo, he looks up at the
ceiling, looking for all the world</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">like he’s doing calculus in his head, or
praying. “Did you fuck him?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">She stops. “Is that what you’re waiting
for? Yes! I did. Happy?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Yes I did. After you left. What does it
matter? We were through.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">He poisons his sorrow with fury. “Do I
need to get tested?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“No. I just said it was after you left.
You never hear me.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Is that supposed to make me feel better?
That you waited until I left?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">We were—we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">are</i> still married.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“I doesn’t matter how it makes you feel. It is.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I don’t love you. I don’t remember loving
you. You don’t make me cry.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">You don’t make me laugh. You never have.
I used to crawl</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">inside myself and sink when I thought of
us, ashamed of my choice in you.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I don’t feel that any more because we
aren’t.” He walks to her.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">He’s a head taller than she is. He looks
down. She doesn’t look at him.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“I’m doing the best I can not to spit on
you.” She exhales and closes her eyes.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“I know. This shouldn’t be news to you
but it is and I’m sorry you’re angry and hurt. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;"><br />
<br />
<br />
I wish you could move on, too. I know you’re hoping I have some doubts.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Our marriage was the ghost of my own
doubt.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I’m not doubtful. I’m through.” She turns
again to leave but he stops her</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">as he spits one word: “Whore.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 2.0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I’ve dropped all pretense that I’m not watching.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Everyone in the 48th Street Winn-Dixie is
watching. Everyone is going to go home</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">and tell this story. She faces him. He’s
shaking. “That ring on your finger.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">It’s my grandfather’s. Give it back to
me. Give me back my grandfather’s ring.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">You’re not my wife. You’re a whore. Give
me that ring, whore.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Would your grandfather be proud of you?
Of your words? Of this?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Don’t talk about him. He’d want his ring
back. Give me the ring, whore.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">She pulls off the ring and drops it.
Bouncing, it sounds like the highest handbell,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">the only living sound in the silent
store. One song ends, another begins. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Tears mark the floor. “I’ve never been
more grateful we had no children.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">When we chose not to have them, I didn’t
know you’d always be one.”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">She heads for the door. He follows. I
follow them both, shameless.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">They get in separate cars. His needs a
belt. And tires. And bondo.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Hers is covered in bumper stickers. They
drive away in different directions.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I want to call after them, “say instead
your kisses are like wine!</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Tell him his arms are towers! Tell her
her breasts are the twin fawns of the gazelle!”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">But what do I know of them, save we buy
the same things?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">What kin do we have beyond consumption?
What ken can I bear here?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">“Hey come back, I remember when this
happened twenty years ago?”</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Maybe amputation is the surgery that will
save them from each other.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Maybe I see in them something I fear.
Maybe those words are what I need to say.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I look down at my cart with the broken
wheel. It’s empty.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Behind me they’re locking the doors of
the 48th Street Winn-Dixie.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I go home empty handed to a house full of
heartbeats and love.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I could say I forgot my wallet but why
should one always lie about such matters?</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I tell Heather there was a scene and I
got distracted. It’s what I do.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">Since we’re leaving tomorrow, we can grab
what we need in the morning.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">She laughs and pulls me close and tells
me the kids are in bed.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">I laugh and tell her her breasts are like
the twin fawns of a gazelle.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">She laughs again because she knows the Bible,
if not the context,</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">and we stretch out on the our old couch
together and drink a nap</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">and watch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">M*A*S*H</i> and happily stay up too late, like we do.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">When we go back to the 48th Street
Winn-Dixie, the sky is crayon blue.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">We pass a car, covered in bumper
stickers, parked near the street,</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">and a girl I’ve only seen in stores
sorting freshly pressed dress shirts</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Georgia",serif; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-font-family: Georgia;">into a defaced green and white charity
bin labeled<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lothing and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>hoes.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-87426577019290336502020-02-24T22:02:00.001-05:002020-02-24T22:02:01.274-05:00Sonnet for Detroit<b>Sonnet for Detroit</b><br />
<br />
The iron oxide flowers, red and hoary;<br />
dilapidated cars die rusting here<br />
among old dogs that stalk their territory,<br />
pissing on ancient cans of Pabst Blue beer.<br />
<br />
The cranes scream, bending air with magnet claws<br />
while crushed glass falls like leaden, empty snow<br />
between metallic corpses and rubber gauze<br />
that beg me to be dragged away, singing low.<br />
<br />
The forklift strains beneath the ruddy weight<br />
of broken hulls that carried families<br />
from birth to death but now whose only fate<br />
lies in the boiling flame and smelting breeze.<br />
<br />
The fire that refines will make them new.<br />
I wish to God that I was burning, too.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-33403121964556672522020-02-24T21:37:00.000-05:002020-02-24T21:37:00.213-05:00Winemaking<b>Winemaking</b><br />
<br />
That’s not how you’re supposed to do it,<br />
mashed up against me like a grape<br />
one-half bruised and hidden<br />
in your fingers. Try one more time<br />
but drop the act. See my hands on my hips?<br />
See my raised eyebrows? I don’t believe<br />
you. You’ll want me to look<br />
like this—to be relaxed. See the smile?<br />
See how my body’s open to your<br />
plane of attack? Now try it again:<br />
here I am.<br />
<br />
That’s not how you do it:<br />
mashed up like a grape,<br />
hidden and half-bruised.<br />
Try your fingers one more time,<br />
drop my hands on my hips,<br />
raise my eyebrowed belief,<br />
want me to look at you.<br />
Relax my smile,<br />
open my planes to your body.<br />
Try your attack again.<br />
<br />
How you do it:<br />
A hidden grape<br />
mashed up, half-bruised<br />
on your fingers.<br />
Hands on my hips<br />
raised in belief<br />
to look at you.<br />
My smile relaxed,<br />
my plane open<br />
to your attack.<br />
<br />
Do it,<br />
hidden grape.<br />
Mashed on<br />
your fingers,<br />
my hips,<br />
in belief.<br />
Look at you:<br />
relaxed<br />
open<br />
to attack.<br />
<br />
Do it:<br />
grape-<br />
mashed<br />
fingers;<br />
hips<br />
believe.<br />
Look: you<br />
relax,<br />
open—<br />
attack.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-29818498322140581052020-02-24T21:34:00.002-05:002020-02-24T21:34:50.282-05:00The Wind & the Willow<b>The Wind & the Willow</b><br />
<br />
I fall before the weight of words<br />
forgotten, almost; robbed from you<br />
by your eternal parting there<br />
where I was not; I could not be,<br />
so torn in distance from the us<br />
that never was; our fantastic us<br />
that sang on youthful arms to be<br />
the pull that planted us here, there,<br />
apart from all we knew. Then you<br />
were gone; leaving me lonely words.<br />
Our song, like Spring, was our one kiss.<br />
The willow mourns the winter; windless.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-1748506279319814122020-02-24T21:33:00.001-05:002020-02-24T21:33:07.836-05:00Pushing the Muse<b>Pushing the Muse</b><br />
<br />
“Nothing” we said in passing, stuck<br />
in whippoorwill repentance, heads<br />
sunk silent, ears ignored and humbled;<br />
the jumbled gesture, mute, tone-deaf<br />
fell onto fragile hands that fumbled<br />
possessionless, impoverished—blank.<br />
<br />
Our faces at our feet we moved<br />
in opposition, telegraphic<br />
words end-stopped within our hearts,<br />
stuck in passing; saying nothing.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-51717393787819267902020-02-24T21:31:00.000-05:002020-02-24T21:31:12.550-05:00The Long Defeat<b>The Long Defeat</b><br />
<br />
In every age the world declines;<br />
profound and weary reasons hang<br />
themselves upon philosophies.<br />
Each Spring no birds remain who sing.<br />
The feeble arts unclothe our minds<br />
with nothing woven into proof;<br />
our wisdom fails and fallen, lies.<br />
We seek a spent, imagined youth.<br />
But always there are lonely flames<br />
that stand apart and burn on faith—<br />
where works and love untouched by stain<br />
rebuild with uncorrupted grace<br />
reborn from mourning into light<br />
opposing the eternal night.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-86535295039351900132020-02-24T21:28:00.001-05:002020-02-24T21:28:15.426-05:00Hemiplegia<b>Hemiplegia</b><br />
<br />
I wonder if you’ll ever learn<br />
desire splints atoms into blood;<br />
it’s not peer pressure, it’s just your turn;<br />
<br />
some men just want the world to burn;<br />
the ring you wear was dug from mud.<br />
I wonder if you’ll ever learn<br />
<br />
the sacred words that transform scorn<br />
to love; to know not when but should.<br />
It’s not peer pressure, it’s just your turn<br />
<br />
to stand. Alone, curled like a fern,<br />
unravel into me and bud.<br />
I wonder if you’ll ever learn<br />
<br />
what I can’t say. Your silence earns<br />
contempt. Speak. Move. Do. Loose your flood.<br />
It’s not peer pressure, it’s just your turn.<br />
<br />
We’re here, apart but touching. Spurn<br />
convention. Give in to the slant mood.<br />
I wonder if you’ll ever learn<br />
it’s not peer pressure, it’s just your turn.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-56305104794592131352020-02-24T21:18:00.001-05:002020-02-24T21:18:52.280-05:00Rawhide<b>Rawhide</b><br />
<br />
Stray dogs are ripping widowed paper bags.<br />
Nearby lies a broken heel; a leg out of place;<br />
a skirt, hem slung around; a mouth that sags:<br />
a hole in a yellow, faded, made-up face.<br />
<br />
A mongrel tears a strip of rawhide free<br />
from a faded bag. His teeth sink in the soft skin<br />
as bitter drops fall from the balcony<br />
where a girl is wringing out her clothes again.<br />
<br />
His ears twitch, hit with the brown sinkwater<br />
that pours from dirty panties. He turns his tongue<br />
to lap the steady stream. The girl drops her<br />
wet rags, coughing. He gnaws at the blood and dung.<br />
<br />
The mongrel drops his skin in the filthy light.<br />
Her love is coming home to stay tonight.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-24497649337054657292020-02-24T21:15:00.003-05:002020-02-24T21:15:41.141-05:00This Fond Imprisonment<b>This Fond Imprisonment</b><br />
<br />
Bloody sense fell out of time:<br />
impractical to find,<br />
easier to lose.<br />
<br />
Abdicating the need to choose<br />
we stare into unmoving<br />
planets, locked in the purple<br />
<br />
burdened sky, unable<br />
to follow the clock’s quick hands.<br />
Trapped out of time because<br />
<br />
no one believes that signs<br />
are not debatable,<br />
a billion gods, each failing<br />
<br />
to sustain his lonely world,<br />
cast a cause upon<br />
anything but skin.<br />
<br />
Let us live within this world<br />
unburdened by the need<br />
to master anything.<br />
<br />
Hold me in this entropy,<br />
the strong force integral<br />
and infinite between us.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-52121642919001145872020-02-24T21:13:00.001-05:002020-02-24T21:13:05.757-05:00On the Sixth Day<b>On the Sixth Day</b><br />
<br />
I blinked and you were born<br />
Unlike me and yet the same<br />
Your smile and eyes the first<br />
I saw; you were my mirror,<br />
My opposite, my end.<br />
We glowed in the green day<br />
And I gave you all my names.<br />
The gift of you alone<br />
Bested all creation.<br />
But the light failed and we<br />
Grew blind together, lost.<br />
And then i lost you; limp,<br />
You hung your silent head<br />
To never laugh again.<br />
I was too dumb to know<br />
That night would turn to day.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-7953910731442943642020-02-24T21:11:00.001-05:002020-02-24T21:11:02.383-05:00Translated from the Greek<b>Translated from the Greek</b><br />
<br />
<i>for Alicia Stallings</i><br />
<br />
Ripped moorings drift within your reach<br />
as you save wordlings from their fate<br />
like children plucked from stranger fires.<br />
Phrases arranged to hide or teach<br />
condemn or love in measured weight<br />
unhidden from ancient pyres<br />
sing out of shattered aspirations<br />
to rise and fall at your command.<br />
These words you wean from mother tongues<br />
stumble into foreign nations<br />
ignorant of their master’s hand;<br />
they fight with the fury of the young<br />
shoring the fragments of our ruin<br />
against a broken civilization.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-37081514563036960352020-02-24T21:06:00.004-05:002020-02-24T21:06:52.657-05:00Wedding Spring<b>Wedding Spring</b><br />
<br />
Go now, together, with lives tied,<br />
newborn curates of the long road;<br />
lover cleaved from lovers; laughing<br />
ancient self-slaughter shaped to the shared<br />
flame of a twisted, braided wick.<br />
<br />
Kindle no anger overnight;<br />
together sacrifice pride to love.<br />
Into one house, account, accord,<br />
one word pour all your work—make your<br />
tongue speak now only of life: love.<br />
<br />
And when the necessary trials<br />
burn your life’s elliptic rings<br />
upon your fingers, don’t fall into<br />
yourselves but fall into each other;<br />
alone now always means together.<br />
<br />
Forget your fights from the final word;<br />
forgotten years will rise before<br />
faults will wear themselves away<br />
and sooner will unsought conversion<br />
come than love to adamant hearts.<br />
<br />
To years—to springtimes, summers, autumns,<br />
winters—to all those spinning seasons<br />
ending where you have here begun:<br />
love; to love’s perfect knowledge; to love<br />
reborn each morning you are one.<br />
<br />
Go, newborn lover, ancient flame:<br />
kindle together into one tongue<br />
and burn upon yourselves, alone;<br />
forget forgotten faults; and come<br />
to winter’s ending: love reborn.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-75218192363074331422020-02-24T21:02:00.001-05:002020-02-24T21:02:24.626-05:00Now is the Winter's End<b>Now is the Winter’s End</b><br />
<br />
Six points of snow teach me<br />
cashmere embraces skin<br />
like robots gripping glass,<br />
bright strength buried within<br />
commands unknown to us,<br />
bound knots that were never free.<br />
This precious death is bright<br />
in a child’s arms like tears,<br />
skin-rent. Intend, begin<br />
to see this sphere–it shares<br />
our breath, a space to span<br />
with ease if this is right:<br />
there’s everything to find<br />
in a timeless state of mind.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-91160242072549471762020-02-24T20:57:00.002-05:002020-02-24T20:57:39.559-05:00Helen & Menelaus<b>Helen & Menelaus</b><br />
<br />
Here is the arrow’s scar,<br />
still stiff, it goes straight through,<br />
reminding me of you;<br />
reminding me from far<br />
years past of the men tossed<br />
in arms, their faces stilled<br />
in fright, not noble, just killed,<br />
who won less than they lost.<br />
Yet here I am: old man,<br />
dry husk of brittle eyes,<br />
blind ears, deaf mouth; I can<br />
no longer lift the sword<br />
that won my fickle prize<br />
who turned upon a word.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-7288297158083664202020-02-24T20:54:00.001-05:002020-02-24T20:54:46.589-05:00Daedalus & Icarus<b>Daedalus & Icarus</b><br />
<br />
Without your road to walk<br />
along I carve the air<br />
unbound, unmoored, I stare<br />
unheard, I lie unlocked,<br />
heart-blocked and buried here<br />
in an oceanic maw<br />
of memory and awe,<br />
of history and fear.<br />
There is no freedom. Bars<br />
adorn the fairest cage<br />
open to air and stars.<br />
We’ve had enough of hate<br />
to burden every age.<br />
I’ll exit from my own gate.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-44450711820970348122020-02-24T20:52:00.002-05:002020-02-24T20:52:16.675-05:00Poseidon & Medusa<b>Poseidon & Medusa</b><br />
<br />
On this wet rock you come,<br />
my hair around your waist<br />
in streams like ocean foam;<br />
the pressured salty taste<br />
rests upon my tongue.<br />
As we swallow the night<br />
the morning rises stung<br />
and stained with our delight.<br />
Here in this temple crows<br />
are swelling from the altar<br />
screaming the holy vows<br />
I promised I would keep.<br />
I have done much more than falter<br />
and vengeance never sleeps.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-51102517194477995512020-02-24T20:46:00.000-05:002020-02-24T20:46:50.973-05:00Lost Revelation<b>Lost Revelation</b><br />
<br />
Our tongues are swords<br />
pointed inward<br />
hilts left to those<br />
whose snatching hands<br />
scar our mouths split<br />
between the ears<br />
where no thoughts lie.<br />
<br />
Revelation!<br />
We are having<br />
none of that stuff,<br />
headpiece emptied<br />
straw burnt, rocks strewn,<br />
we have become<br />
product zero.<br />
<br />
Zeroed into<br />
what we've become<br />
we burn remains<br />
of empty heads<br />
and try to stuff<br />
what we've got to<br />
revelations<br />
<br />
that will not lie.<br />
Between our ears<br />
our mouths are split<br />
by jealous hands<br />
who bear the hilts<br />
of bladed words<br />
forged by our tongues.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-24556605818128443782020-02-24T20:33:00.003-05:002020-02-24T20:33:36.992-05:00Brooding<b>Brooding</b><br />
<i> a villanelle for Heather, on our anniversary</i><br />
<br />
Incomplete if not a pair,<br />
we tramp together, sure and fumbling,<br />
our children cleaving to our care.<br />
<br />
Their cries and laughter rend despair<br />
while our complaints go mumbling,<br />
incomplete. If not a pair<br />
<br />
of lovers buffeted through the air,<br />
we cut a graceful flock: we’re stumbling.<br />
Our children, cleaving to our care,<br />
<br />
grow without warning—soon they’re not there;<br />
our steps uncertain; we’re stumbling,<br />
incomplete. If not a pair<br />
<br />
of hearts will we fight the snare<br />
of silence? Clinging to our mumbling,<br />
our children, cleaving to our care,<br />
<br />
we sacrifice our love affair<br />
for simple love, pure and stumbling,<br />
incomplete if not a pair,<br />
our children cleaving to our care.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-48223877927956417172020-02-24T20:29:00.000-05:002020-02-24T20:29:00.635-05:00Birth of a Nation<b>Birth of a Nation</b><br />
<br />
Rhea sweats, lost in the heat of her labor,<br />
while two men battle over her contractions.<br />
The static waves of the monitor cradle her cries<br />
in a rhythmic circle-beat of straining hearts.<br />
She moans in constricting pain and feral hunger.<br />
Her husband says that she has had enough;<br />
they decide that she cannot labor on in her state.<br />
Against her wishes she hears the doctor offer<br />
an intervention to preempt the pain.<br />
Rhea says no I can through her dry lips<br />
in vain. They do not hear her tired voice.<br />
The epidural spreads narcotic knives,<br />
severing womb and strength from Rhea's mind<br />
as amniotic fluid drains past her legs<br />
no longer cushioning the fontanel.<br />
Pitocin forces contractions into her sinews<br />
while a wire is screwed into her baby's head<br />
to watch the decels build with every spasm.<br />
The doctor reads the charts with a legal eye<br />
and calls to ready the O.R. for a section.<br />
The baby's head recedes. She cannot push<br />
and so the doctor spreads her perineum<br />
and kisses it with his knife. She cannot push<br />
and so the vacuum cap is stuck in place<br />
five hundred millimeters tight. He pulls<br />
the child and Rhea tears from stem to stern.<br />
Her child, born by extraction, is torn away<br />
with blood and water at his mother's feet.<br />
Everyone crowds the foot of Rhea's bed;<br />
will they not let her see her firstborn child?<br />
Weak, Rhea struggles up to see the child,<br />
stillborn beneath the vernix and lanugo.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-58200016442736715352020-02-24T20:23:00.005-05:002020-02-24T20:23:51.627-05:00The Final Arc<b>The Final Arc</b><br />
<br />
<i> for Alan Sullivan</i><br />
<br />
No place in the nuke ward but the MRI<br />
delivers menace more than medicine;<br />
though not for me; through these four years of dying<br />
there have been few surprises; I have seen<br />
my tumors shrink or grow with no prognosis<br />
for salvation; but today a ceaseless sobbing<br />
cleaved through the whispered conversations and curses<br />
futile as a penitent before a king.<br />
Strapped to the gurney, I am no longer trapped<br />
and the Spirit knows where I was blind; I pray<br />
and the Dove flies from me as if the flood<br />
of fear was a phantom its wings could wash away<br />
and in the silence of the ward I crack<br />
a joke. The laughter is our gopherwood.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114005265747329925.post-43662914927197874492020-02-24T17:46:00.001-05:002020-02-24T17:46:22.567-05:00Malacorp<b>Malacorp</b><br />
a hymn to the 14th Amendment<br />
<br />
<i> Things are seldom what they seem:</i><br />
<i> skim milk masquerades as cream.</i><br />
– W. S. Gilbert<br />
<br />
Malacorp awoke: ten million shifting eyes<br />
focused on their groping mouths and prayed within their lies<br />
for Malacorp to stretch its banks of flesh and gold and steel<br />
and pixelated light to make the nation kneel.<br />
<br />
Malacorp for Mayor! The churchyard marquees shined<br />
but the Board of Malacorp had bigger goals in mind.<br />
Malacorp for Senate! For Governor! For King!<br />
But the CEO of Malacorp, he dreamed another thing.<br />
<br />
Malacorp the candidate was shining and immense.<br />
Kissing babies and shaking hands at stockholder expense,<br />
each primary was pricey and the competition roared<br />
but Malacorp was triumphant, led by CEO and Board.<br />
<br />
The steam was building nicely like the colors of the Fall,<br />
Malacorp was polling in the sixties overall<br />
and then that fateful Tuesday, Malacorp was on a roll;<br />
five million times it voted for itself at every poll.<br />
<br />
Its stock rose overnight as the news of victory struck.<br />
The brutal winning margin was not beginner’s luck.<br />
Malacorp our President! Is what the papers said;<br />
the Republic sighed a final breath and finally was dead.<br />
<br />
The stockholders were millionaires now making all the laws<br />
and never to the lesser folk did they give a moment’s pause.<br />
The poor folk hadn’t voted, and not for Malacorp;<br />
and once the thought was spoken, they weren’t thought of anymore.<br />
<br />
The Constitution ‘mended so that Malacorp could hold<br />
a third, a fourth, and fifth term, as it never would grow old.<br />
All criminals, instead of jail, now worked at Malacorp:<br />
the white ones in the office, the blue ones at the store.<br />
<br />
Nothing now was taxed and each thing had its price.<br />
The suburbs built their walls and all stopped being nice.<br />
The cities grew like corpses swollen with the poor<br />
who bought their food in markets that were owned by Malacorp.<br />
<br />
Directors and stockholders all fell laughing back in smiles<br />
as campaign funds metastasized in electronic piles<br />
singing money spent on Malacorp was money duly spent<br />
for now five million souls could claim they owned the President.G. M. Palmerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14515043039690357593noreply@blogger.com0