library 4th floor

sitting on the floor
in the stacks of the
library holding a book
by a newly dead author

look out the window
grey, cloudy

rub my eyes yawn
lean my head against
the shelf
breath deeply

look out the window
again

flip through the book
the soft ftt-ftt-ftt of the
pages fills the acoustic
void

sigh deeply
get up stretch a
bit

browse the shelves

look out the window
once more

walk down stairs

Age gives no indication of years remaining,
only the number accumulated.

Visiting Tui, a distant memory

Tui lives in a tiny clapboard house
in a small forgotten Western town
surrounded by a little yard of parched grass
a shade tree, a rusted swing set
She lives alone, she has no children
she is in her mid forties I guess.
She is my friend and visits with her are easy
she is a spinner and a weaver
she also loves to knit.
Her old Galaxie has a bumper sticker which reads
"so much yarn, so little time."
Time - hangs suspended in mid air in her cozy home
The kitchen has stainless steel sinks which line the walls to hold batches of home made dyes- indigo, onion skins and spinach greens.
The living room is a wooden spinning wheel showroom of sorts, wooden boxes hold skeins of yarn, from ceiling to floor.
The kitchen, tea and cup cozy,
ambition doesn't live here. There's no where to be, no one needed, everything is here and now.
One day while I was visiting, Tui led me to her bedroom in search of a magazine article.
Bed piled high with fat handmade quilts, warm golden carpet, sunlight.
She looks under her bed for the magazine and instead pulls out a dark wooden lock box.
Without a word, she opened it and held the certificate of commendation for me to read.
From the President of the US
A certificate of bravery and accomplishment for her Father, now deceased
For his contribution as crew on the Enola Gay

You're Not Seeing Me

-
you're not seeing me.
I'm talking
but no amount of reasoning
or preparation can get
my thoughts through.
I'm backing it up with
actions, daily living
puncuates my voice
but to no effect.
You're not seeing me
and there is no
way around that.
-

God Who?

Today's news
is incomprehensible, stupid,tragic
I found the article after
the phone call from the mother
of the daughter

my friends-both.
Can I fix her hair-for the viewing-did i know-
her daughter
is dead?
No, i didn't know
No i cannot believe
the young and beautiful teenager
silly- vain- smart
apparently happy -
could take her own life.
The reports are now in
it was an accident- most likely
Regardless by accident or on purpose
the question seems to incessantly haunt me
-Where is God?
Where?


This poem was in the obituary this morning:
In Memoriam

Rhiannon

1993-2008

Funeral Blues:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum, Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let the aeroplanes circle moaning overhead, Scribbling on the sky the message She is Dead, Put Crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policeman wear black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods; For nothing now can ever come to any good.

- W.H. Auden

Day One

Christians defy their credo- pray piously and righteous and sing- vulgar campy songs
March on Soldiers-march
Dios Mio- what shit! - outside our rooms inside the camp-
There’s more
A shower by the pool- plaster vault-light switch- bare bulb fixture hangs, empty from the center of the ceiling- besides the shower head- execution style suicide vault-
bats-
a penned up goose in space too small to turn around-once-
honks, honks, honks
and the neighbor boys in sandals and dust-pick berries from the tree and dance as they eat and ask to have a picture taken –
with you, and you, and you.
dinner, rice and beans, sauce plantain-
all fine-
mouse with long tail scurries by!
Each morning- each night-heart ponds,
find courage to go in or out the door-
to sleep
Day One in Campo Los Hippocities.

Living is an unfolding narrative of change
,ending long known, but the plot differs
the plot is difficult to guess,
and the viewer is certain
that all characters
have not been introduced;
not yet.

stare

a highschool classmate

was murdered
by her husband

stabbed
repeatedly

with a kitchen knife
in the chest & neck

here's the thing
(the rub, if you will)

i do not remember her
at all

a somewhat vague flicker
of recognition

maybe

but even that is
a stretch

i looked at
my senior yearbook

i looked at her picture
nothing

a slight flicker,
but nothing

more

in a way
that is sadder

to me than her
death

DWC

The Smell of Yamasa

Altagracia papers
Aug. 2, 2008

Arrival, Campo Los Hypocrities, descending layers of degradation and squalor.
Top rung-airport- to traffic, horns, exhaust
- to air to sea.
Blue like the artificial ocean in a city aquarium, blue like turquoise, the sky, -the moon- once in a while-
Pot holes, mud streets- garbage, plastic bottles,funk
-decorate the yards- knee deep-
Landscape in garbage and burning metal.
Concrete block walls crumble
-No roof here, rusted tin there
-Naked children, chickens
-skinny dogs- scratching, scratching, scratching- these are our neighbors- beyond -the green gate, concertina wire and padlock- guards
Compared to its neighbors-the 5 star resort.
-Starred and Barred
Fourteen cots, triple flimsy metal bunks, in a fifteen square foot room. Dirty old mattresses,
Two shower stalls-one spigot
-COLD-
bare light bulb.
One rattle fan-electric
A moldy air conditioner
Nine grown women in this room-fourteen days behind these walls-
one toilet,
one waste paper basket for all toilet paper products- spills over
(Only what comes out of the body goes down the toilet-in the majority of the country)
Two mirrors
Dark shadows- light hearts- expectations
Thirsty Cockroaches creep and beg you to shower
Germophobe's skin crawls
Mosquito nets over bunks
- hang from the ceiling – slightly exotic-
trap mosquitoes in- silent ninjas-
swift and deadly-
outside the dorm-basketball hoop, fruit trees, hummingbirds- swimming pool- Nice!- palm thatch fresco dining- long banquet tables, plastic chairs- 2 cooks, dinner bell rings- frogs croak-
goose honks-
donkey brays.
Germophobe runs away inside herself
in order to survive
Arrival in the Dominican republic

(if you can handle it, there are many more pages)

No one was impressed.

When sick,
I remember being a child.

I remember the coughing,
trouble breathing, and
days indoors.

The girls thought I was gross,
spitting phlegm into trash cans
during gym.

The teacher still made me run laps,
I would do my best,
but I would start coughing
and would spit into the trash cans
every lap.

No one was impressed.

Without Ever Having

I remember my hair feeling short
on my shoulders and eating
currants on the train to your village. The
windows filled with the mountains and
trees of your country. I did not
know the trees of your country.
When I woke I was riding through
fields of oats. There were small
houses with vegetable plots. There
were horses. The rails curled and hummed
under the car. A young woman with two
children shared her tea, but we could not speak.
I did not know her words. She pointed and
showed me how she made her children's hats.
They were beautiful.

When I arrived at the station,
you were not there. We later understood
the time charts were not reliable; I
was early. When you arrived, you held my
arm and carried my things. The walk
was short. I was your wife.

Our house was at the bottom of
the road. The kitchen had a
coal stove and I learned the ways
of your country. Your cousin took me
to the market until I knew the way.
You worked. I learned the vegetables
and how to grow them. I cut
the dead wood out of the fruit trees.
This was the life we promised each other.
There was no false.

After two years you took me into
the mountains to teach me the
names of the trees. You said this was
the last thing to learn. We walked, and when
you put your hand on a tree you said
it's name. I followed you and touched
the trees you touched. I said the
names with my breath.

When I knew them all we sat down
and did not speak. We had met.
We had all our words together.

The years have went away.
They are gone. Our house
is at the bottom of the road.
It is a short walk.

I can go no longer
into the mountains. I cannot
touch the names of the trees.
I cannot sit in the place we sat; where
we ruined words.

The world was
tame that day. Now
it pulls at the rope.
It contends the lead.
I am letting go of the
words and the shapes.

For Between

Not only is, we are

small.

Our arms move under the
footnails of the sky,
and in night the sky
moves past. (we go
out there only small).
So proud we touched the moon.
You cannot lay a star
under your eyelash.

But grow into tomorrow while
you sleep, and wake there. This is
the only is.

I love you and hold my hand.
When I don't touch you, I hear your
sound as I stutter through
Indiana. The towns pronounce
their names in your voice. Then
I sleep away under roofs under endless.

I will come together to you after
I've been through this place.
My pieces drift together and move
towards you.
I do not want unknowable.
I want beneath and beside you.

among the dying

old testament

this was no way to live,
or die

chained at the turn
of the century

and yet always --
as with then

(and before)

rising to greet
your family,
eager for touch


and the new

others would come
and go

(the focus of nearly
all affection)

while you sat outside
in the dust, and dirt,

howling and jumping
whenever i'd approach

and so it went for nearly
two decades

until i found you dying

chained up, as always,

barely turning your
head as i reached
down to touch you

and swat away the
flies

Fill

Leap leap.

Leap leap.


Leap leap.

Leap makes a
motion. It

moves away.

Into leap leap.

Leap doesn't know
land. Land's what
leap leaves.

In between: air.
Where leap doesn't
live: air.

Leap goes up land comes down.
In between: air.

Nobody knows air.

(but it might be better than that last patch of land).

Leap leap.

Age in Time

The whither face makes faces at
age. The corrupt tongue uncurls past
the dry lips and beats the air.
The sound is terrible. Eyes giggle
in their dark holes. The nostrils smooth out
as they flair up. Creaking earlobes tilt back
and forth. The dry hair knows nothing; it
is already dead. All together you are age.

Young looks out, making the same faces
from the playground with the same
innocent spite.

Throw Poems

Throw poems away. The
words get in your head and become
big ribbons unrolling
from the ribbon-wheel.
Carry armfuls of them to lunch.
In evening stumble over
them

going up the stairs with clean laundry.

Wrapped up in them turning from
right side to left side all night.
Who has time for all these children?
Breathe deep when your lungs are empty.

Throw poems away. They are
aging fruit. They are oranges from Christmas.
They are dried fruit you cannot eat dried.

The wind is under your young fingers. Hear the
stream in your ear. The woman
with a scarf brings plates of
almonds for breakfast.
Enjoy the life parts.

Everything will go away
to away where poems are.

something real

every time i try
to write something


something real


i feel unbearably
tired

like i could sleep
then and there

(for hours)

passed out at my
keyboard,

fingers lazy
and heavy


clogged with words


unable to form the
tiniest utterance or

quietest scream

Fading

I had another birthday, about a week ago
I woke up from a sweet dream,
unlike the nightmares I normally have.
In the lavender bathroom I saw my Bubbie
staring back at me from the mirror.
She was gentle and sweet, and I love her, but she was really old
like i looked that morning,
or she did
It's strange and disconcerting to see the progression of time etched upon your face
the face
that holds the innocence and confusion of a person
still
trying to figure out what she is supposed to be doing here
in this place
of beauty and horror
of gravity and time
it's not about what do I want to be when I grow up,
because it can't be
i will never grow up
and i am already old
I know
because I see her whithered face staring back at me in the mirror

full tilt

i feel like linus
without his blanket

a new door opens
but questions persist

i woke up last night
fearful scared & grasping for breath

i rolled & tossed
my brain going a mile a minute

a metaphysical cliff
a deep ravine

am i brave enough
to leap

DWC

Social Lament

The older I get,
the more broken I feel.

Social situations,
have become uneasy.

Each interaction,
challenges my new poverty.

I wonder why,
have I begun to slide away.

Metaphor

nouns
To some, it is a dog in hell.
And others: an exploding cigar,
cholera, a battlefield.

[Forgive the crudeness of that last one;
I have run out of rehearsed sarcasm.]

But that, as they say, is only the beginning

[Or the end.]

& verbs
It is an old window, where the blinds
have finally been lifted

[2 months from the day they
were drawn]

It is an aging man who exits a door —
hideous and green —
carrying the television set
left by a prior tenant.

[And with it: three Christmases,
Strange Brew and countless five
dollar pizzas]

It is the widow, cantankerous,
who stole a past life from the
dumpster

[And the girl who relives it
at every neighborhood
garage sale]

It is that old chair,
indented and warn

It is a glass door
with a torn reflection

It is...

A string that pulls
until it breaks.

[Only to be pulled
again]

It is...

Days upon days
of stories

[Without a soul
to tell]

It is...

The inverse of all
of these things

[all that is and
never should
be]

books

a life through bookshelves

i pulled each book off
looked at it & made a
decision: keep not keep

a life, 70 years
encapsulated in
between the covers of
hundreds books

some had his name
written in his
distinct small
barely-legable handwriting
others underlined in
faint blue ballpoint

at least one had his
doodles-- that must of
been a winner

dust from the years
invaded my nostrils
made me sneeze
i washed my hands repeatedly

i'll keep some of them
but many i'll get rid of
i have no choice i have to
he'd understand

DWC

like this, like this

The toothpaste is its own world; it
lives behind the mirror. The sun rises
when you turn the light and
faucet. The wind swings the cabinet open.
Physics are absolute: running out of time
will not rush the rest of the world. Only a
portion will leave the nozzle at
one time. Then the day goes.

Meaning means. Walk through a peace.
The only important time is time and your
shoulders will fill with dirt.
What's behind us steps forward when
we chase it.

Once the river valley filled with smoke from
nowhere and as it drifted off it filled with
years. We get down here with the
lawn and the rocks.

It is good
that we're nothing.
Look at what you
see when
you're unreal
and invisible.
The city and
the woods shine
up from the soil.

And the shagged stutter of days. All these
are good things that I say. The
faucet fills and refills the sink
while we squeeze in the rush.