Agni
Her Eyes
There is a green pasture in Italy
littered with Vestal columns
-broken and profane
they point back to a community
that no longer remains.
That greenness surrounds obsidian
with its verdant Sylvan bloom
with more authority than kings or even Gods.
The center of this garden recalls a deeper doom:
A rock from which flight is impossible
The child of Tarpeia’s womb.
And when she blinks poetry is silenced.
Her Skin
There is Dresden porcelain in her skin
forged from Augustus’ private stock
of the cleanest white and softest soft.
Her heart beats shyly within -
I trace the master sculpture with an eye
if not a hand. A brief passing by
to sooth the conquering demand.
When we touch, she averts her eyes.
Her Lips
She never blows bubbles but
She chews cinnamon gum
So her words come with the distinct taste
of sacrifice from Volcanal.
It is a brief reminder that she is ancient
and naked somewhere under there.
Sometimes she sings to the delight of the world
and her heart pours from her mouth
with the molten golden words.
She doesn’t smoke because it gives you wrinkles.
Her Hands
Her hands have the curious habit
of touching everything -
They are constant vigilant explorers
searching for any light
to break the thick dense fog
of unimaginative reality
that clouds her sight.
They are so cold even in summer
that I can only imagine they search
for some towering lighthouse
to steal some warmth.
Ten tiny promethean digits
that can tickle ivory or children.
She plays with her gold ring when she’s nervous.
Her
And could you imagine that
Heraclitean furnace at her core.
The way she worries that it
burns out of control.
She is anxious often but never sad
like energy itself
and to look at her you would never
understand how she couldn’t adore
the way she laughs uncontrollably,
sighs absent-mindedly or
snores only when she sleeps alone
and presses her pillow so tightly to her face.
She prefers the company of humans.
Victory
Ours are the only lights in downtown Worcester
Electricity is a fragile touch at 40 miles an hour.
These are the nights of youth for young inventers
With drinks and smiles, like us, and the three ladies at the bar.
Simplicity is the power to resist holding tongues,
to ignore ethical necessity, to allow change to rout
the phalanx of lightless office buildings. We’re the ones
made of stories, eyes of hallow grounds, we’re figuring out
distance means being flightless in our feelings and honesty
means being selective with our sounds
Our night was filled with worlds of swirling smoke,
poetry if not honesty, and memories that fade like city lights.
Ash falls on our outfits, burning from our cigars as we spoke
about health nuts who would never live thru these Worcester nights
with any sanity or soul. We talk about where we’d rather be;
Israel, Germany, Florence (with a lady sleeping next to me) -
But mostly we talk about going back in time and just doing this more often.
Outside, a different building, a different person, a different whole watches
through eyes without curtains too dark to see.They count off
ten orange cones marking a different route home. In their subconscious
they’ll recall 3 men exiting a bar who entered as boys at a birthday party.
Their shared victory would be timeless as they drove back in the dark.
Unglorious
Where did you find the time to write this?
Was it after our coversation on the phone
Oh poet, dear poet, you cared too much
For title, for self, and for home.
You couldn’t settle for the title of a tender touch
or the selfhood that refused to be alone
Oh poet, dear poet, what will you write about
without me to keep to you warm?
Your life isn’t healthy and it isn’t fair
You want what you cannot own.
Oh poet, dear poet, our eyes are sick
from crying all night long.
You say you don’t have time for me
it must be busy not having a home
On poet, dear poet, how can this be?
Where did you find time to write this poem?
To Give a Name (An Ode to my Unborn Son)
It’s 3 a.m. and I hear my unborn child cry
on the shrink wrapped baby monitor
looming over a cup and a tea bag sucked dry.
A half opened book lays on its spine,
A book on SIDS too frightening for such an hour
A nightmare too real for my mind.
The book in my hands; a book on baby names
Is opened to “D”, who knows what for,
Because one decision still remains;
Will he be strong, or smart, or kind
With mathematics or philosophy
Written as poetic line,
Running through his heart, or in his veins
in his eyes or in his mind
and will his name be a highlight, or a stain?
Will it be apt or prophetic
will it define him before he’s born,
Both meaningful and aesthetic?
When he says it will their pride,
Or shame in his eye
when he asks a girl to be his bride,
To take his name, to take our name?
Will he be chastised
For its lack of fame?
On my death bed will he say:
“Its all your fault,
My life turned out this way”?
More importantly will he be right?
Is his fate in my weak hands,
Cradling his name tight,
At such late hours of the night.
The Law of Non-Contradiction: Or why things die
It was on this very spot,
this pile of dirt we bought,
that our father once stood
He lived through wars we fought,
and he never forgot
that evil comes from good.
Is he in the wind, or in the mind,
the absolute of history, or the grace of time,
In her hand, or in the trees?
Perhaps he is none of these.
This body once contained
A child whose laugh sustained
the people of the wood.
But now this corpse remains
drowned in cheap champaign
that never tasted as it should.
Is he in the wind, or in the mind,
the absolute of history, or the grace of time,
In her hand, or in the trees?
Or perhaps he is none of these.
While turning old and grey,
he was recalled to say
“Dear, perhaps I’ve misundertood
The meaning of the day
or what price we pay
In persuit of the almighty good.”
Is he in the wind, or in the mind,
the absolute of history, or the grace of time,
In her hand, or in the trees?
Perhaps he is none of these?
But on the night he died,
While on his bed he lied,
He finally understood
That while some run, some will hide
some will fight, and others will abide
but no body shall be considered good
Are we in the wind, or in His mind
the absolute of his story, or the grace of Thine
On the land, or in the seas?
Or perhaps we are all of these.
