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.

How To

14 minutes later I got
Up out of bed with the
Poem in my teeth and
Spit it onto the angry paper.
I brushed my teeth.

Poems have no use in the
Teeth. Their importance is an
Elsewhere full of different.

Now my sleep’s no good, not
With a head full of poems and
Stern contradiction.

These words are train tracks. My body
Is a horrible steam engine: outdated.
The switchman’s shack is on fire.
The engineer is unfamiliar
With the wrench.
The brakeman stares at a metric
Conversion table befuddled.

Everyone has a part unknowable
To anyone else. This is my mountain
I’m sliding down.
It is unlucky to address it when
You see the water
Passing over me in the ravine.

I Guess Everyone's Life is Important Anyway

An old
Black man sat
By the edge of our
Woods waiting
For rain
To slip down
On the field.

In the Crowd

Being in a crowd is like being
Surrounded by a lot of people,
Except their faces have been
Rubbed out and someone has
Drawn red leather wings
On their backs.

The Cool Thin Edge of the Infinite

The violence between us was
Too much, so I
Left and drove out
Beyond the last houses.
The moon was sitting in the branches
Of an elm. The rest of the sky was
Full of faces. There is no perfect way
To describe an evening.
Ignorant in now, I
Touch words.
But none of this.
The world has settled down for
Sleep. I would like
To join it.

Understanding the Nomad

In the wet morning, bacon cooked on
Hot rocks beside a fire followed
By mush done in the grease.
No kettle no coffee.
I drink from the farmer’s ditch, then
Move. There are few small things to pack up.
In this life I have left little behind.
Places where fires were.
I do not believe in memory.
The only thing worth believing in is
Slow and quiet moving through the
Long dark.

When Time

Who cares?
Every day I shovel sand
From the temple.
The wind brings more.
Let it get buried. I have
Goats to tend.

In the spring I will be
Going up the mountain.
I will leave the shovel and
Broom for the
Pilgrims.

bed is better

rain
grey skies
jazz
a small white cat

a general feeling of
malaize

an empty coffee
cup

DWC

Still Point

There was a time
when i forgot how to talk
But i could make it rain, whenever i needed water
and now words come to me when i need them
at certain hours of the day
and i have learned to jump fences
like a doe
Hunters
to act like the others
Camouflaged
But i still know
their intentions and ignorances
before they speak
and i am still walking
in the still point